


Masterpiece Theater

by Morwen_Maranwe



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Angst, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Mpreg, Post-Reichenbach, Relationship Issues, Some Fluff, but definitely more of the angst and relationship issues, story is pregnancy-centric and not really parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 112,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morwen_Maranwe/pseuds/Morwen_Maranwe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The future of medicine is here: a pill that repurposes the male body, making it possible for a man to become pregnant.  Sherlock is intrigued by it for inexplicable, slightly illogical reasons.  It is an adventure waiting to be taken, a riddle waiting to be solved.  It opens up a path that only a few test subjects have embarked upon in the recent years.  It is the greatest possible experiment for him—and it calls to him incessantly.  And, of course, Sherlock has never been able to resist an addiction.  Warnings inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Masterpiece Theater I

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Full author’s note at the end of the chapter, where I go into a little bit of detail about the story. I do not own Sherlock (in any form, BBC version or literary classic) and all pregnancy information is from www (dot) whattoexpect (dot) com and www (dot) babycenter (dot) com. Some of the other medical information I got off of www (dot) webmd (dot) com. I also do not own the songs from the album Masterpiece Theatre by the band Marianas Trench (see full A/N at end of chapter for more details). And if a line from the tv series ‘Friends’ has seeped in here and there, I do not own those, either. I am only going to post this disclaimer once, unless something else comes up that I feel I need to state. Otherwise, just assume that these same words go for each chapter.
> 
> Notes and warnings: This story contains slash, more than a few swear words, and mpreg! It is, of course, non-season 3 compatible and set post-Reichenbach, though I do not really state a definite time, or allude to what happened to bring Sherlock and John back together. I will let you fill in that blank space with your favorite post-Reichenbach fic, as you see fit. This story also starts off with an established JohnxSherlock relationship—again, you can fill that hole however you like as well. Take your pick of any number of great fics that pertain to those two things. ALSO: while this story is indeed mpreg, it does not really revolve around parentlock. The emphasis of this story is more on John and Sherlock's relationship and how it changes and evolves around the choices the two make while dealing with a pregnancy. Please heed the warnings for angst, relationship issues and hurt/comfort. Thanks to my ultra, uber-amazing betas Haelia and Jenamy! X’s and O’s to both of you!!!

The nursing staff that worked behind the front counter was unusually quiet, not speaking to one another.  Even though Sherlock didn’t know these people, he could see the flicker of their eyes to one another that suggested a certain level of stress that settled all around each one of them, and he knew that the silence in this work environment was not normal.  The few people who were desperate enough in their illnesses to risk the visit to this particular doctor’s office sat in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs in frightened silence, and Sherlock’s sharp eyes took a quick scan of the few of them.

An older woman, who had a very bad cough.  When she leaned forward in her chair, Sherlock saw her wince at a soreness in her diaphragm, and he knew that she had probably waited a few days before venturing out to the clinic, hoping that he protest mobs would dissipate soon.

A younger woman, hair lanky and unkempt.  Shaking fingers picked nervously at the threadbare seams of her shirt and she wasn’t wearing a jacket, odd for the slight chill that sat in the air this morning.  _Addict_ , Sherlock thought, letting his gaze rove over her, uninterested.  She was probably homeless and had donned her cleanest clothing for this ‘doctor’s visit’, leaving her coat elsewhere because it was too filthy for her to wear without raising suspicions.

And another woman with a small child, who sat unmoving as he leaned against his mother.  She had her arm wrapped around him, hugging him tightly, and her eyes never left the large windows and the crowd that could be seen through it.

All women.  No man would risk being caught in one of these clinics today.  Or tomorrow, even. 

The nervousness in the small waiting room was palpable—even the junkie’s eyes darted to the windows every now and then, and Sherlock could imagine that she was trying to talk herself in to staying in her seat, for the pain killers.

He couldn’t blame them for being uneasy.  If he were a lesser person, he would probably be as well.

Actually, if he were a lesser person, he most likely would not be here.

The mob outside was growing bigger and bigger as the minutes ticked away.  A few police officers were patrolling the perimeter—Sherlock could see them through the large glass windows of the office building—but there were far too many people for the handful of cops.  If the mob decided to get violent, there would be no stopping them.  Sherlock understood the fact that Scotland Yard was dividing all of their agents between the other clinics in London, but still, it made him slightly mad: there were innocent civilians in the doctor’s office that had nothing to do with the reason the mob was outside.

“Mr. Holmes?” a nervous voice called out, and Sherlock looked up to see an anxious-looking, mousy nurse standing before him.  “The doctor will see you now.”

He nodded silently and stood, following her with one last look of trepidation behind him, at the growing crowd that seemed to be pushing itself closer to the windows.

In the back of the office, the low, angry grumble of the mob was silenced by walls and doors, and Sherlock was led down the small corridor towards one of the exam rooms.  To his surprise, when the nurse opened the door, the doctor was already waiting for him, and the nurse quietly left them to it, not bothering to stay to do the mundane, necessary tasks of taking his vitals and preparing all the information for the doctor’s viewing.

That was interesting.  He never knew a doctor to get his hands dirty with those trivial tasks—the preliminary exam was always done by the Physician Assistant or a nurse.  Family practitioners were only interested in the root of the problem.

“Hello, Mr. Holmes,” Dr. Greenwhich greeted him once the nurse had closed the door behind her, leaving the two men alone in the small exam room.

The doctor was an older gentleman who had a nice disposition and a caring heart, and he smiled congenially when he greeted Sherlock as soon as the tall brunette walked into the room.  The physician motioned for Sherlock to take a seat at the exam table in the middle of the room, but the consulting detective declined, continuing to stand.  If the aging doctor was put off by Sherlock’s apparent rudeness, he did not show it.  “I have to say, I was surprised to have received a call from you regarding this situation,” he said to the man, amicably enough.

Standing across the room from him, Sherlock could see that Dr. Greenwhich looked extremely tired, so different from the last time the consulting detective had seen him, only a few months ago, embracing his teenage daughter as Sherlock brought them back together after the kidnapping.  Now, he had the lines around his eyes, mouth and forehead that he had worn the entire time his daughter had been missing.

Sherlock could understand why.

“Why is the nurse not going to check me over first?” he asked, not bothering with all of the pleasantries of polite conversation that John had tried to instill in him over the past few years.  That’s not why he was here, after all.

“Ah, well,” a small smile played at the corners of Dr. Greenwhich’s lips.  “As you can see, I’m not near as busy as I would be on a normal day and…I would like to take the lead on these particular visits by clients.  No need to drag all my staff down with me if things are to turn sour.  I already feel that I’ve asked too much of them as it is, agreeing to be one of the few clinics that…well, can’t back out now, can I?”

Sherlock said nothing, because the simple answer was that, yes, of course Dr. Greenwhich _could_ back out.  But Sherlock knew he wouldn’t.  The doctor was trying to prove a point—for what, Sherlock had not yet deduced—and they both knew that the older gentleman would not turn Sherlock away now.

“I know you’re not here for advice or lectures on it,” the doctor continued, staring at Sherlock intensely.  “I trust you’ve done all the necessary research for yourself and come to your decision on your own?”

“Of course,” Sherlock said, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice.  Like he would be here to discuss the _options_ and the _consequences_!  But he knew that the doctor was weary and wary, and, despite everything going on in the world outside this building, he was being as accommodating to Sherlock as he could be at the moment.

“Right then.  Do we need to discuss anything at all?  The side-effects, the procedure, the…results?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes as he stood before the physician, because, contrary to what John or Lestrade said, he _did_ get tired of proving to everyone that he knew everything.  “I understand that it is a series of pills to be taken for several days and that the…transformation…will not be pleasant,” he rambled off, giving the doctor a smirk that slowly faded.  “I assume it is nothing that would end up in a trip to the A &E?”

Dr. Greenwhich shook his head and made a back and forth motion with both of his hands.  “No, no.  It should be uncomfortable—of course—but nothing too serious,” he answered reassuringly.

“Good.” The less people who knew about this right now, the better.  And John would get immediately suspicious.  Of course John would.  “And after the…change, ovulation will begin as soon as my body has a chance to get used to everything?”

Nodding his head the doctor said, “Yes, I’d give it sometime between 1 and 3 months.  There has not been any recordings that it should take more than that.”  The old physician turned towards the cabinets in the exam room and began shuffling through drawers and cupboards, pulling a few boxes and some small plastic bags out.  “Along with the round of Synathida pills, a male-specific ovulation test comes as part and parcel.  It works much the same as a female ovulation kit—you will dip the strip into your urine and the result will be shown.  It’s simple enough to do yourself at home beginning the week after you finish your round of Synathida.”  He turned back to Sherlock, handing the tall, dark haired man a few of the bags that he had shoved the pills and ovulation kits into. 

“You understand that this procedure can only end in a Caesarian section?” Dr. Greenwhich asked, voice stern.  “Of sorts,” he explained a bit more.  “The pill will reform your appendix, making it hospitable for fertilization.  You will have to be operated on and your appendix will be removed once you are at the end of your term.” 

Sherlock didn’t say anything, simply grasping the little bags that Dr. Greenwhich gave to him silently.

Dr. Greenwhich kept his dull brown eyes on Sherlock, sharp and shining behind his wire-framed glasses, mouth set in a stern line.  “You will not be able to do this again,” he continued lowly.

“I understand completely.”

The doctor nodded his head once, with finality, and turned to open the door to the exam room for Sherlock to exit, extending his other out to shake the detective’s hand. 

“Good luck with this, Mr. Holmes,” he said as Sherlock reluctantly reached out to grasp his hand and shake it.  “You are a brave man, knowing what you want so decisively.”  Sherlock gave the doctor’s hand a quick shake and let it go as soon as he could, staring at the older gentleman before him as he continued to speak to Sherlock. 

“The world is changing, and you have to understand that.  This will not be easy.  On anyone.” 

Sherlock nodded his head silently, not sure what else to say in the situation, uncommon for him.  But he didn’t dwell on that at the moment—he wanted nothing more than to get out of the doctor’s office and back to Baker Street before John came home from the surgery.  He swept past Dr. Greenwhich, giving the older man a quick nod in farewell, but the man reached out and took hold of Sherlock’s arm, his grip tight, indicating a fear that the doctor couldn’t hide any longer. 

“For God’s sake, go out the back door,” Dr. Greenwhich said, turning Sherlock around and pushing him towards the other end of the corridor.  “They will know what you were here for the instant you step outside.  They’ve kept mostly to themselves these past few days, but why push our luck, wouldn’t you agree?”

Xxx

Blast the wretched doctor.  The pain was almost unbearable.  ‘Uncomfortable’ his arse!  His insides were spasming and roiling around each other.  It was unsettling.  It was painful and scary and gut wrenching.  Literally.

He tried to breathe through the pain, and his hands came up of their own accord to cup his belly.  He was certain that he felt slight movements beneath the skin of his fingers and abdomen—his stomach and liver being pushed unceremoniously out of the way and his intestines inching their way higher in their cavity.

He knew his organs weren’t actually moving enough for him to feel them that vividly, but his mind, as always, was simply trying to comprehend the situation he had put himself in.

He was at the end of his cycle of pills, and for the past 2 days he could do nothing but lie in bed, in too much pain to even jump at the call from Lestrade about a case.

_Figure it out yourself, you moron.  I’m too busy dying._

John, of course, had worried the instant Sherlock had said that he was too unwell to take the case.  Sherlock had to try to convince him that it was only a small flu bug, nothing to get worked up over, but John seemed reluctant to buy his story.

He reached out quickly for the trash bin that had been by his bedside for the past 2 days and pulled it towards him.  He was surprised there was anything to throw up at all, excluding organs in his body that were being unceremoniously pushed aside and deemed as unimportant by those damn little pills.  In fact, that may have been a kidney he had just thrown up.  He was fairly certain it was.

Outside of his bedroom door he heard John knock, and the doctor’s soft voice called out to him.  “Sherlock?  All right in there?  I brought some dinner, if you’re hungry.”

Sherlock groaned and rolled over in the bed, wrapping the sheet around himself as a spasm of shivers took over his body.

“Sherlock?”

He heard the door creak open slightly, and the only thing he wanted more than to keep throwing up at the moment was to deal with John fussing over him.

“Go away, John!” he told his pillow moodily.

“Maybe we should take you to the A& E.  See what’s wrong….” John’s voice was closer now, almost right by the bed.  In the dim light that was shining from the lamp on his bedside table he saw the shadow of John reaching out a hand towards him.

“No!”  He drew away from the hand that was coming for his forehead, sinking lower into the sheets.  If John felt his fever, he would want to rush Sherlock straight to the hospital.  That could not be allowed to happen.  “Just leave me the bloody hell alone!”

His voice was venomous and from a gap in the sheets he saw John draw back his hand, stung by Sherlock’s tone.  “All right,” the blonde man said softly, at a loss as to what to do with Sherlock.  “Just…call me if you need anything.”

John walked out of the room as quietly as he had come, shutting the door softly behind him and leaving the brunette man alone in his misery.  Sherlock simply rolled over in bed and waited impatiently for the worst to pass.

Xxx

Thankfully, a few days later Sherlock found his reprieve.  The pain in his abdomen finally began to subside until it was nothing more than a dull ache, constant and nagging—especially when he over-exerted himself—but nothing that was intolerable.  As he began to feel the energy to get out of bed return, he knew his body was gearing up for the next step in the process: ovulation.

The ovulation test was not unlike any number of experiments he had done in the past.  And, in some, he had often used his own fluids, so he was not squeamish about handling his urine.  When John left for the surgery in the mornings, Sherlock would bring out the strips from the hiding spot he kept them in—wrapped in a plastic bag and put inside the hole on the underside of the skull in the living room—and he dipped the strips methodically, waiting patiently for results he knew would appear in moments and recording his data meticulously.  He did not ovulate for the first week after his round of Synathida, nor the week after, even.  But he did not worry—every scientist knows that patience always leads to expected results, and this was no different.

When, finally, in the third week, his ovulation strip showed him a positive reading, he recorded the data with a grin on his face.  He was finally able to move on to the next step of the experiment—the part he knew he would enjoy greatly.

He was going to make John Watson get him good and pregnant.

Xxx

They had been having a physical relationship now for a few years—the inevitable conclusion to their partnership, he had told John—and he knew that the fertilization process would by far be the easiest step in the experiment.

He was not disappointed.

It was not terribly hard to get John to have sex with him repeatedly over the course of his ovulation cycle.  The blonde man had always been a sexual creature, as Sherlock had gathered not long after John had first moved in with him, and although he was a few years older now than when they had first met, John proved to be a voracious man who had a healthy sexual appetite.

Especially when it came to Sherlock.

All the brunette man had to do was make a kiss linger for a second too long, run a hand down the blonde’s thigh, press their bodies together just right in a hug, and John was lost.  Sherlock knew this, and took advantage of every trick he had up his sleeve over the course of his ovulation cycle. 

After a few days of constant, nonstop, almost teenage-like sex, John did seem to get a little suspicious.  Whenever Sherlock allowed him up for air, the blonde man seemed to recall that they hadn’t shagged so tirelessly in years—since they had first gotten together and had not been able to keep their hands off of one another—but before he could dwell any more on it, Sherlock would pull him back down into their bed, intent on making John forget how to even formulate a sentence.

It seemed to work for the most part, and any time that they were not spending shagging, John was too busy trying to catch his breath or recover the use of his limbs to even think about why Sherlock was fucking him so relentlessly.

On a few occasions, Sherlock was even able to forget that he was supposed to be shagging John in the name of science.  During those times, the consulting detective was more than happy to have another go for the second time that day, this time just for himself.

John, for the most part, seemed more than happy—and willing—to give Sherlock everything that he could.  But, of course, every man, no matter how horny, eventually comes to a point where they just have no energy left.  When John finally reached this point, he could do nothing more than lie on his back in their bed, spread eagle and naked as the day he was born, trying to catch his breath as perspiration dried on his skin.  His short, dirty blonde hair was plastered to his forehead, and his pupils were so dilated that they seemed to mesh with the dark blue of his irises, making it almost impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

Sherlock, lying next to him, was already snaking a hand out once again, wrapping long pale fingers around John’s flaccid cock.

The man beside him twitched uncomfortably at the over-stimulation and groaned.

“Sherlock, wait!” he complained, trying to curl into himself and push Sherlock’s incessant hand away futilely.  “I’m not as young as I used to be—give me a minute!”

From the other side of the bed, Sherlock only made a noise of discontent in the back of his throat as John tried to cover himself up with their blanket, trying to put an end to Sherlock’s exercises. 

“You’re sucking the life right out of me.  Literally!” John exclaimed, turning his face away as Sherlock moved to kiss him.  “I need a drink of water or, better yet, a cup of tea.  Anything to get some fluids back into me.”

“I can give you some fluids, John,” Sherlock said cheekily, an evil smirk growing on his full lips.  “If that’s what you want.”

John could do nothing but groan in frustration and weariness, and wait for Sherlock to attack once more.

Xxx

Exactly a fortnight after the last day of his and John’s two week long ‘sex marathon’—as the blonde man so lovingly called it—Sherlock was down at Dr. Greenwhich’s office yet again, having his blood drawn to test for conception.

Dr. Greenwhich was once again attending him, true to his word about wanting to be the only doctor seeing his few Synathida patients.  Sherlock, for his part, sat on the uncomfortable little bed in the bleak exam room, looking much too tall for the standard issue table and holding his arm out tiredly as the doctor continued to draw what seemed like a tremendous amount of blood from him.

“How was the reconstruction?” Dr. Greenwhich asked companionably into the still silence of the small room.

“Uncomfortable.  I’ve only just recovered from the spasms and the pain that came along with it.”

“Well, didn’t think it was going to be a walk in the park, did you?” the doctor asked with a small smirk on his thin lips.

Sherlock decided that was one of those questions John had told him about in the past—hypothetical and not requiring a response.

“It’s completely normal, so I hear,” the doctor continued, when it was obvious that Sherlock was not going to respond to him.  “The pain you felt after the round of Synathida was your appendix restructuring itself to prepare for ovulation and be able to accommodate a fetus once implantation has occurred.” 

Sherlock hummed his interest.  He knew all of this information, but he guessed that the doctor just didn’t like uncomfortable silences, so he let the man continue to speak.

“After we test your blood, we will be able to tell if implantation has occurred.  Don’t be too upset if it hasn’t—you will continue to ovulate monthly, until you become pregnant.  So there will be plenty more chances for you.”

“And if implantation has already occurred?” Sherlock asked, somewhat haughtily.  He had no _proof_ that his or John’s sperm was superior to anyone else’s but it only made sense to Sherlock that this was as inevitably enhanced as everything else pertaining to the duo.

If Dr. Greenwhich noticed the condescension, he let it pass.  “Well, if you’ve been implanted by your partner’s sperm, the ball of cells that is the beginning stages of the fetus—called a blastocyst during these early weeks—will take up residence in your appendix, which will be acting—for all intents and purposes—in place of a uterus.” 

He seemed to be pleased with the amount of blood that he had taken from Sherlock, and he began to remove the butterfly needle and tubing attached to the man’s arm as he continued to speak.  “The part of the blastocyst that will develop into the placenta will start producing the pregnancy hormone hCG, human chorionic gonadotropin, which will trigger production of estrogen and progesterone in your body.  In the early stages of male pregnancy these hormones, which will contribute to lots of other things throughout your pregnancy, will line your appendix with the necessary tissue that it needs to be sure the blastocyst implants into the walls of the appendix.  The hormones will also stimulate placental growth. ”

He placed a cotton ball into the crook of Sherlock’s arm and gestured for the brunette man to hold it there.  Sherlock pressed down hard, trying not to remember the feel of other needles being drawn out of his veins and the rush that always followed afterward.  Instead, he focused on what the doctor was saying.

“Amniotic fluid will begin to collect around the blastocyst in the cavity that will become the amniotic sac. This fluid is meant to cushion the baby in the weeks and months ahead. For the first few weeks, the blastocyst will be receiving oxygen and nutrients—and discarding waste products—through a primitive circulation system made up of microscopic tunnels that connect the developing baby to the blood vessels in the wall of your appendix. The placenta won't be developed enough to take over this task until the next few weeks.  This early on, the primitive placenta is made up of two layers,” he was talking with his hands now, holding phantom organs in between his fingers and moving them up, down and around, as if he could show Sherlock just exactly what was happening in his body at the moment.  “Its cells are tunneling into the lining of your appendix, creating spaces for your blood to flow so that the developing placenta will be able to provide nutrients and oxygen to your growing baby when it starts to function at the end of the fourth week of your pregnancy.  If you are pregnant now, the amniotic sac should be growing in the next few days.  This sac will house your baby.  Also to come soon will be the amniotic fluid, which will cushion her as she grows, and the yolk sac, which will produce your baby's red blood cells and help deliver nutrients to her until the placenta has developed and is ready to take over this duty.”

Finished with his explanation, Dr. Greenwhich sat back in his seat as Sherlock stared at him silently, being sure he had taken in all of the doctor’s information.

_HCG will produce estrogen and progesterone.  Blastocyst will implant into walls of appendix.  Next comes the amniotic fluid and sac, then the placenta.  Right._

“Any questions?” the doctor asked, looking as though he were expecting plenty.

“No.”

He would never get used to the look of uncertainty that people gave him when he was able to comprehend something that they didn’t think he should.  But, thankfully, Dr. Greenwhich was already accustomed to the inner workings of Sherlock’s mind and he did not comment on the matter any further. 

“We will call you as soon as we get the test results back, but, if you are pregnant, you may develop more symptoms before you even hear back from us.  Your…breasts…” he said, looking sheepish and slightly uncomfortable for the first time since he had seen Sherlock, “male as they may be, will become tingly, sore, and feel a little swollen, as your male body struggles with the fact that you do not have the necessary mammary glands that the hormones are meant to stimulate, thanks to the progesterone and estrogen coursing through your system.  Also, another symptom that may come up is frequent urination.  The pregnancy hormone hCG will increase the blood flow to your pelvic area and your kidneys, making them more efficient during pregnancy, since you will be urinating for two.”  He stood, signaling the end of Sherlock’s appointment, and the tall brunette moved to do the same, hitting his head on the overhanging light fixture above the exam bed with a hollow-sounding _thunk_ and a cringe.

“You may also begin to feel some bloating,” the doctor continued, walking to the door and holding it open for Sherlock.  “Progesterone will also be responsible for that.  It will start to slow down your digestion to allow more nutrients to enter the bloodstream and reach your baby.  There may also be some, ah…extreme mood swings, which will once again be caused by the hormones that your body will be producing.  Other than that, you should feel just peachy,” the old man finished with a smile.

Sherlock did not return the sentiment.

“Don’t worry about a thing, my boy,” Dr. Greenwhich told him, placing a comforting hand on Sherlock’s shoulder as the brunette man passed him to exit the room and leave.  “I’m sure everything will turn out just as intended.”

Xxx

The week following his doctor’s appointment, Sherlock was, indeed, on edge and rather jumpy, but he couldn’t be sure if it was pregnancy related, or if he was just feeling the strain of waiting for the doctor’s phone call.  Each time his cell phone went off, he would start violently and scramble for the small electronic device, rushing out of the room if John were in it.  Not very discreet, he knew, but he couldn’t help it: he felt as though he were walking a tight wire, waiting for the one piece of information that could tell him whether or not he could proceed with the next part of the experiment, or if he had to go back to square one.

Waiting for the test results had always been one of his favorite parts of experiments.  The thrill of not knowing, the frustration of being so close to the end, the anticipation of what was coming next…he had always imagined that was what children felt on the eve of Christmas or their birthdays, when they knew presents were close at hand.

The call came, finally, at the end of the week, when John was still at the surgery and Sherlock was impatiently digging through their pile of cases, looking for a good one that would take his mind off of the fact that his phone had not rung all damn day—

The sharp, loud tone of his ringer split the still air of the room and Sherlock could do nothing for a few seconds but stare at it, his heart hammering in his chest.

When he reached out to answer it, he heard Dr. Greenwhich’s voice on the other line.

“May I please speak with Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

“This is he.”

“Oh, hello, Mr. Holmes.  It’s Dr. Greenwhich at the family planning clinic.  I thought you would be interested to know that your results have just come back.”

“Yes?”

“Congratulations, Mr. Holmes.”  Sherlock could hear the doctor’s smile even through the crackling of the poor reception.  “You are one of the first confirmed successes of the public release of the Synathida pill.  Your blood test confirms that you are, indeed, pregnant.  We would like to have you come in for a prenatal checkup in a week, to do all the routine tests.” 

For a second, Sherlock could not speak.  There was a tightness in his throat and a queasiness in his stomach that fluttered back and forth.  When he finally managed to open his mouth, the only thing that came out was a croaked, “How far along am I?”

“Well, we won’t be able to tell for certain until we can do a sonogram and take some measurements, but from the information you gave regarding your sexual activity at your last prenatal exam, it seems….”  Sherlock heard the soft rustle of papers on the other end of the line as Dr. Greenwhich went back through his file.  “About 5 weeks, judging by the date you gave us for your last day of ovulation.”

Xxx

After he hung up with Dr. Greenwhich, he went straight to John’s laptop, opening it up and breaking through the new security measures John had put up in a feeble attempt to keep Sherlock out without a second thought.

Straight to the internet and onto the first pregnancy website he could find.

5 weeks, 5 weeks, 5 weeks….

He navigated the website to the correct page and read the information on it, drinking it all in.

And then a new website and a new page.

And another and another.

Well, then.

At 5 weeks, the embryo’s heart and brain, along with all its other organs, were developing.  That simple fact was enough to stop Sherlock in his tracks.  For the first time, he began to think of the embryo not just as some radical experiment he was constructing, but as an actual living thing inside of him. 

It had a heart.  It was alive. 

And a part of him—a silly, frivolous part—began to wonder about all those organs developing inside of him.  Would the heart growing in the embryo turn out to be a good, brave, caring heart, like John’s?  And the brain…could it possibly be developing a brain like his own, vast and unquenchable?  For the first time since he had decided to go through with this experiment, he began to wonder at the simple fact that there was a very real possibility that the fetus could have the best parts of him and John.  John’s eyes and his cheekbones.  John’s feet and his nose.

He put a hand to his stomach, unnerved.

This was unexpected.

He had always been able to severe any emotional ties that cropped up during an experiment.  That course of action had always been for the best.  How could he calculate the data correctly if things like his _feelings_ got in the way of what he was supposed to be analyzing?

But yet…he knew without a doubt, between one second and the next, that he was not going to be able to do that with this experiment now.

He had become emotionally involved, in the span of a breath.

Interesting.  He would have to write down this new development as soon as possible.

Xxx

As the day of his first prenatal checkup drew closer, Sherlock was interested to find that he had a particular bloating feeling in his abdomen, along with some mild to severe cramping.  He knew that the hCG was causing an increase of blood flow to his pelvic area, and that his kidneys were becoming more efficient at ridding his body of all of the waste that it didn’t want to keep around for any length of time.  Added to that the fact that his growing appendix was beginning to push down on the surrounding organs, especially the bladder, to accommodate its growing size and he was running to the bathroom more often than he had ever gone before in his life.  He tried to anticipate his bladder’s frequent need to relieve itself, and he would use the facilities right before he and John left Baker St to go to a case that Lestrade called them about, but, depending on the length of time they spent at the crime scene or at the morgue following the body, he would inevitably have to go again. 

When it happened the first time, John gave the uncharacteristic behavior a frown, but otherwise ignored it.  When it happened consecutively at the next three crime scenes they were called into, the blonde doctor couldn’t seem to help asking if Sherlock was okay.

The consulting detective tried brushing him off in the beginning, but when John would not let up about it Sherlock had ended up snapping harshly at him, something he had not intended.

Mood swings, indeed.  Yet another thing he would have to be sure to document in his notes.

Unfortunately, the symptoms didn’t stop at just a frequent need to relieve himself and a few harsh words to John or the other police officers who inevitably annoyed him during a crime scene investigation, no.  There was now an un-ignorable swelling in his hands and feet, and an incessant cramping on his right side that was almost as unbearable as the reconstruction process of the Synathida pills.

And 2 weeks after the call that confirmed his conception, there came the morning sickness.  And the evening sickness, and the middle-of-the-bloody-night sickness.  He could not eat, could not even so much as _smell_ food, without his stomach churning unpleasantly and urging him to the bathroom.  It happened so frequently that Sherlock could not even try to hide it from John.  A few times when John had been in the bathroom, Sherlock had not been able to make it to a trash can and had ended up using the shower or toilet while John was occupying the washroom, puking into whichever facility the blonde doctor was not using at the moment.

At night, whenever they went to sleep, John had gotten into the habit of moving to the farthest corner of the bed, as far away from Sherlock as he could get, because the brunette man tended to jump out of bed and rush out to the bathroom with no regard for anyone sleeping close to him.

It was enough for Sherlock to wish that he had never gone through with the blasted idea in the first place.

Almost.

Xxx

“We’ll start with a general physical, and then move on to the rectal exam to be sure everything is okay in that end.” 

Dr. Greenwhich chuckled crudely at his own pun, but he was the only one.

For the third time in the span of 6 weeks, Sherlock found himself in the doctor’s office yet again.  He was beginning to hate the small, dull exam rooms and the even duller nursing staff that he had to put up with during his visits. 

“It is difficult to do prenatal examinations on male patients because they do not have a birth canal that we can examine to be sure everything in the embryo’s temporary home is okay.”  The head physician was attending him yet again, and Sherlock found that he was somewhat grateful for that.  He didn’t think his already-frayed nerves could stand anyone else poking about him.  “For now, we can only see what the camera brings up from the rectal exam, and what we can find in the general physical and blood samples we will take again.”

“More blood?”  He tried to keep the frustration out of his voice, but he was too tired to try very hard.  And, frankly, he didn’t really give a damn at this point, anymore.

Dr. Greenwhich only chuckled softly again.  “We have to determine your blood type, Rh factor, and see if you are iron-deficient.”  He gently pushed Sherlock to lie back on the rickety, still-too-small exam bed and the brunette man went down unwillingly.  “We will also test it for sexually transmitted disease—don’t worry, its standard procedure—and immunity to Rubella.  We will look for other ethnic-specific genetic diseases, as well.  And we will need to take a urine sample to test your glucose, protein, red and white blood cells, and bacteria levels.”

Sherlock cringed inwardly.  He was beginning to feel like some sort of laboratory rat, being poked and prodded and told when to sit, when to stand, when to cough, when to lie down, when to urinate.

This was not going to end well, he could tell already.

True to form, by the end of the tests and the physical, he had made two of the nurses cry, and another handful refused to help the doctor examine him anymore. 

As the rectal exam drew to a close, Dr. Greenwhich sighed when his PA ran out of the room, bawling.  He brought a hand up to rub at tired eyes and took a moment to contemplate the man sitting before him. 

“I think you know what kind of information we would ask you about your medical history, and that of your partner.  Why don’t you go home and just send an email my way with all the details.”

Sherlock was slightly surprised by the doctor’s words.  “Is that standard procedure?”

“No, but I think that would be for the best.  For everyone.”

Xxx

God, would he ever stop vomiting?  Between all of the fluids he had lost due to the Synathida and now the early stages of pregnancy, he was surprised he had not dehydrated yet and turned to a pile of dust as he lay on the bathroom floor, hugging the toilet bowl.  The website said that his appendix had doubled in size during the past five weeks.  His eating habits, never very good to begin with, were now nonexistent, thanks to the [morning sickness](http://www.babycenter.com/morning-sickness), which was in full swing during this 8th week.  If his information was correct, he gathered that about half of the women who felt nauseated during their first trimester tended to find complete relief by about 14 weeks, and doctors expected the same for most men.  For the rest, all the websites said that it would take about another month or so for the queasiness to ease up.

For now, all he could think of was how good the cool tile felt beneath his heated and heaving body, and he took comfort in the respite of the short period after he had vomited when his stomach settled just a little bit after expelling its contents.

Just then a knock came on the bathroom door, soft and swift.

“Sherlock, I’m going out for dumplings.  Want me to bring you back some roast duck?”

So much for the break from vomiting.  Even the thought of roast duck was enough to have Sherlock’s head back in the toilet bowl, throwing up again.

Xxx

John knew. 

He knew that he knew, but his brain was trying to protect itself, denying that the possibility could even exist.

Well, he knew very well that it _could_ exist, thanks to all of the news reports that were on the television 24/7 these days.

But he needed to hear the words, to have his assumption confirmed, to really _know_.

“Sherlock, we need to have a word,” he called out through the door of the bathroom.  There was a moment of silence, when even the heaving of Sherlock’s stomach went still, and then the sound of the toilet being flushed and running water.

A few minutes later the bathroom door opened and a very pale, very shaky Sherlock stepped out, sea blue eyes pinned on John like a wild animal being stalked.

John knew that look, knew that it meant that Sherlock’s guard was up.  The brunette was not the easiest man to have a conversation with when it was about nothing of consequence—John cringed to think about how this particular discussion would go. 

But there was nothing else for it.  He would just have to jump right in and see where it led him.

“What’s the matter, Sherlock?”

“I don’t—”

“You’ve been sick, restless and moody for weeks now,” John cut him off, because he didn’t want to hear Sherlock say that nothing was wrong.  He wanted to hear the truth.  “You are eating even less than usual and throwing it all up.  And you’re sleeping more, but you look even more tired than you ever have.”  He took a deep, steadying breath and looked calculatingly at the man standing across the room from him.  “I know, Sherlock.  At least, God, I think I know but I pray that I’m wrong.  I’m not as blind as you sometimes think I am.”  He made a gesture to the television set that sat in their living room, off now and quiet.  “I’ve seen the news reports, I’ve read the articles in the paper.  I hear people talking about it all over the place….I’m going to ask once—just once—and I’ll believe your answer.  Just…just tell me.  Are you….?”

He couldn’t even say it.  Didn’t want to believe the feeling deep down in the pit of his stomach that knew the answer to his question even before Sherlock spoke.

And Sherlock didn’t need to answer.  His silence and that penetrating, silent, stare was confirmation enough.

John felt his legs give out from beneath him, and he was thankful that he was standing in front of the couch.  He sank down heavily onto the worn cushions and stared blankly at the wall in front of him.

“You took the pill?  You took that _Goddamn_ _pill?!_ ”  He had a sudden, irrepressible flash back to one of his first days with Sherlock Holmes, the first case that they had worked on together, and another pill—just as reckless, just as hazardous, just as deadly as the Synathida.  John’s own words came back to him, in an echo of a past conversation.

_“That’s how you get your kicks.  You risk your life to prove you’re clever.”_

_“Why would I do that?”_

_“Because you’re an idiot.”_

This was ridiculous, this was absurd.  Sherlock— _Sherlock_ of all people—had more sense than to do something like this.  That pill was a radical, experimental drug that John—and he had thought everyone else, as well—felt was unsafe and senseless.

Male pregnancy…who would want that?

Well, there was someone right in front of him who would, it seemed.

He felt sick, thinking about people taking that pill without any thought to the side-effects it might bring.  Organ failure, cancer, death, so many life threatening things that it could cause…

And Sherlock had taken it without a second thought to his own safety.

“How could you be so fucking _stupid_?”  The words were out of his mouth before he had even realized he had said them, and they shocked him slightly.  He had never spoken to Sherlock in such a way, in such a tone, stripped of all the walls John usually kept up to protect himself from Sherlock and to protect Sherlock from everything outside of the brunette’s small, perfect world that he had erected around himself.

Still, Sherlock said nothing.  Made no attempt to defend himself or his decision.  Out of the corner of his eye, John could see that the other man didn’t even move, simply stared at John as John stared at the wall.

“How far along are you, then?”

The silence had taken on an eerie quality, sharp and deadly, and when Sherlock still would not answer John could not take it anymore.  “For fuck’s sake, Sherlock, say something, Goddamnit!  I deserve _some_ answers!”

“2 months.”  The reply was short and clipped, Sherlock’s deep baritone voice lingering in the dark corners of the quiet room.

2 months….

For a 9 month time frame, 2 months was a large chunk of time.  Too much.  Too much for anything.  Too much to come to terms with the information, too much to get used to the idea, too much, too much, too much.

God, he didn’t even know what he was thinking.  His mind raced and would not settle on a single thought.  He couldn’t even grasp onto the words that he wanted to say right now, because they were suddenly pushed to the side as more thoughts and feelings tumbled down upon him. 

He was drowning.  That much was clear.  He couldn’t breathe and he was drowning now, trying to gasp for breath as he sank lower and lower and lower…

No, not drowning.  He wasn’t in water.  Suffocating, then.  He gasped uselessly, but he wasn’t taking in any air.  The world was closing in on him too fast, too close, his skin was tingling from the pressure of it all around him.

Ah, panic attack.  Even as his brain began to shut down in anxiety his medical training kicked in, ever a comforting presence, especially in times of stress.

_Breathe, you just need to breathe.  In and out, in and out, in and out._

He fought back the anxiety, the all-consuming panic of the situation.  Fought it back with every breath that he took and sat, still and silent, until the hyperventilation’s had passed and his mind, somewhat calmed by the steady, slow breathing, could finally focus on one thought:

Why?

Why had Sherlock done this?  Why had he thought that this would be an idea even worth entertaining?  Why had he jumped into it headfirst, without stopping to discuss it, to rationalize it, to think it over?

And, Christ, eventually everyone would know.  Would know about the most intimate part of their relationship, what little discretion they had managed to keep from the fans and the blog and the rest of the world.  Donovan, Anderson, Lestrade, Mycroft….Strangers.  Complete strangers would take one look at them out on the streets, in a restaurant, and know.  They would _know_ and there would be nothing John could do to deny it anymore, to say it was untrue, to hide from it.

“Why did you do this to me?” he suddenly asked, unable to keep the words in his mouth any longer.  “ _Why?_ ”

Xxx

John was bordering on becoming hysterical.  Sherlock knew this, but he didn’t try to comfort the man.

“This isn’t about you, John,” Sherlock said evenly.  _Lie_ , his mind couldn’t help but interject.  His hands shook from the pain in his side and the unending roiling of his stomach and he was just too fucking _tired_ to care about it anymore.  “This is about the penultimate experimentation.  Jumping into the unknown and drawing all of the conclusions from first-hand experience.  This is about the thrill of the puzzle and the delight of results.  How it works, what it feels like, the end product.  That’s all this will ever be about.”

“Right.  The puzzle,” John repeated, his tone deadpan.  “And I guess you could give two bollocks that this doesn’t just involve you.  This involves me and…and, _God, Sherlock_ , another human _being_!”  John stood then, restless and agitated and unable to stay in one spot any longer.  “How can you be so fucking selfish!  This isn’t just some _experiment_!   This is a child!  Your child!”

Sherlock noted that he did not say ‘ _my_ child’ or _‘our_ child’.  This was Sherlock’s problem, is what John was saying without words.  John didn’t want anything to do with this.

Expected.

Still, he would be lying if he told himself it didn’t hurt.

“We are standing on the brink of the next medical revolution,” Sherlock explained to the man in front of him, his voice gone soft and deadly as he spoke.  “Scientists are playing God now, don’t you understand?  This is the perfect experiment, John—a masterpiece—and it is only mine, no one else’s,” Sherlock watched the blonde doctor carefully as he spoke to John, the other man still striding across their living room, shoulders tense and hands balled into fists at his side.  “I will deal with the consequences and I will reap the rewards.  I am responsible for everything that comes out of it, entirely guilty of whatever costs it brings.”

“Yeah, Sherlock, of course.”  John wouldn’t look at him, only continued to take agitated steps around their couch, to the front door and then back again.  “ _Your_ experiment and _your_ decision and _your_ problem.  No one else’s.  Not even mine.”

And without another word John left, striding back to the door, grabbing up his coat from the rack and slamming to door to their flat shut so hard that dust fell from the ceiling above him.  The dirty teacups in the sitting room rattled harshly on their saucers, and there was an uneasiness in the pit of Sherlock’s stomach that he was pretty sure had nothing to do with the embryo.

Xxx

The car came around for him not even an hour after John had left.

Sherlock had stood in their sitting room, unmoving, as he wondered at John’s reaction to the news and the nagging feeling in his chest that felt like guilt or heart-ache or fear.

The light steps treading on the rickety old wooden staircase up to his flat were not John’s, and so Sherlock made no movement to meet his unwanted guest as they made their way to his door.  His brother’s secretary was not put off by his impoliteness or his rude remarks as she led him down the stairs, out onto the street and into the luxury sedan that was parked by the curb.  They didn’t speak on the trip to his brother’s home, and they were both fine with that.  They had never had much to say to each other in the first place.

Once the car had pulled up to the front door, Sherlock let himself out and wasted no time entering Mycroft’s home, heading straight to the drawing room where he knew his brother would be waiting for him.

So predictable, Mycroft was.

There wasn’t even a cordial greeting between the two men.  Mycroft took one look at Sherlock—pale and shaky still from his bout of evening sickness and the sallow look of his skin from the days spent vomiting and in pain— and frowned deeply.  “Oh, Sherlock,” he said softly, the fire crackling comfortingly behind him in the hearth.  “What have you done this time?”

Sherlock chose not to answer.  He simply took the seat opposite Mycroft’s wing-backed chair and sat silently, letting the warmth of the fire settle into his bones and ease away the pains in his body.

“Tea, Anthea,” Mycroft said across the room.  “Something decaffeinated.”

Behind him, Sherlock heard the quiet sounds of his brother’s secretary drifting off, leaving the two men alone.

“Would you like to tell me about it, Sherlock?” Mycroft asked, sounding infuriatingly calm and reasonable.

“What is there to tell?” Sherlock asked, purposefully being difficult.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning of this…madness.”

“Are you unhappy that you are to be an uncle, then?” he asked casually, and he could see Mycroft beginning to tire of their game.

“No,” the older Holmes answered.  “In fact, I find that particular piece of information rather…exhilarating.  But once I have offered my congratulations, we will talk about the real heart of the issue, though.”

“Of course.  I didn’t expect anything less.”

Mycroft looked into the fire, crackling merrily in the hearth, and smiled warmly at no one in particular.  “Mother would be excited,” he said.  “She had always wanted grandchildren.  Though I’m sure she had wanted them the old fashioned way.”

“ ‘The old fashioned way’,” Sherlock scoffed, staring deeply into the fire in the hearth in front of him.  “The world is changing, Mycroft.  You know this as well as I do.  The ways of the past are soon to become nothing more than stories.  We are standing on the edge of a whole new world.  And I wanted to be one of the first to step off of the ledge.”

“Of course you did, Sherlock.”  Mycroft let out a sigh, tired and long-suffering.  “Ever the explorer, ever the scientist.  But I don’t believe that is the only thing.”  He turned his gaze upon his younger brother, sharp and deadly.  “Tell me the truth, the whole of it.  Why did you do this?”

All the things he could not say to John tumbled out then, because Mycroft would find out one way or the other, Mycroft probably already knew, Mycroft was the only person who could always tell what Sherlock was thinking.

 And Sherlock was not sure he could hold them in any longer, truthfully.  For over 3 months he had kept this decision a secret from everyone.  From Mycroft, from Mrs. Hudson, from John—the one person he could keep nothing from.

He was _tired_.  And the fire felt so good.

“He wants children, Mycroft,” Sherlock said, voice low and soft.  “And I am too selfish to let him go so that he may one day find a girlfriend, or a wife, or a life that doesn’t involve me at all.”

Anthea came back with the tea then, two porcelain cups with matching saucers on a silver serving tray, the delicate tea pot sitting between them with a steady stream of steam coming out of the spout.  She set it down gently on the table between the two men and then left again just as quietly as she had come. 

“I will admit that the thought of leaving a legacy in this world has crossed my mind as well,” Sherlock continued.  “And there is no one on this earth who I can stomach the thought of doing that with other than John.” 

Then, finally, the actual reason, so selfish in its truth that Sherlock had locked it away, had barely let himself dwell on it: “And now he can’t ever leave me.  We will be connected forever.  In this.  Even if he is so mad that he cannot bear to look at me…he will have to, because he is not the kind of person to walk away from an innocent child because of its parent’s actions.  He will be here always, now.”

Mycroft did nothing but look at him calculatingly for a very long time, as if he were trying desperately to find the right words to say to him.  Finally, into the silence, he spoke, and his words cut Sherlock to the bone. 

“Did you ever stop to think that you have forced him on you?  Chained him to you?  Like a dog, Sherlock.  That is what you have made him into now.  Your perfect little pet.”

Sherlock shook his head, refusing to let Mycroft’s words sink in.  “At least, this way, I can keep him with me forever.”

“No, Sherlock,” Mycroft shook his head, too, slowly, sadly.  “Not forever.  Even pets have a tendency to run away.”

“He will not,” Sherlock said with all the conviction he could muster from his tired body, but his voice shook in betrayal.

Mycroft looked at him pointedly.  “How do you know that?”

“Because he is John.  He is too good a man to run away from something like this.” He tried hard to believe his own words, to trust in what he was saying, but the fear had settled inside of him, and would not leave now.

“In all fairness, Sherlock, you don’t know what he would do in a situation like this because he has never _been_ in a situation like this,” Mycroft argued, his voice rising as his emotions got the best of him.  “You are making observations without accurate data.  So very unlike you.”

“My data is not inaccurate,” Sherlock argued, and he tried to force himself to believe his own words.  “He will be a part of this.  One way or another, sooner or later.  He will come back.”

Mycroft said nothing for a moment, simply stared at Sherlock and let the younger man’s voice be his own contradiction.  “I hope your right, Sherlock,” he said finally. “If only for your own sake.” 

“We are done here,” Sherlock whispered vehemently, rising from his seat.  He couldn’t stand to be in this house, next to that man for one more second.  “I would like to return back to Baker Street.”

“Of course,” Mycroft said, as if he had been waiting for the moment that Sherlock ran away from this, just like he thought Sherlock ran away from everything else.

Sherlock turned on his heel sharply and strode to the French doors of the drawing room, his shoulders set in tense lines and the pain in his side forgotten as he rolled Mycroft’s words back and forth in his mind.  He was almost to the door when his brother called out from behind him, saying the only thing that would make the tall brunette man stop in his tracks.

“Don’t wreck this like you do everything else, Sherlock.”

“Wreck it?” Sherlock repeated, in spite of himself.

“You have the opportunity to do something great here,” Mycroft told him, staying seated in his chair and not even bothering to get up to continue his conversation with his brother.  “But you always manage to ruin things like this.”

Sherlock’s hand shook as he grasped the doorknob tightly, his knuckles turning white from the pressure of his grasp.  “I’m already the wreck, Mycroft.  You know that better than anyone.”

Mycroft only nodded, as if to validate Sherlock’s words.  “This is a very big thing you are doing, Sherlock,” he said, his voice low and deep in the silence of the drawing room.  “Bigger than yourself.  But you had never been very good at believing such things existed in the world.  I suggest you start getting used to the idea.”

X.X.X.

A/N: This story is based off of the concept album Masterpiece Theatre by the band Marianas Trench. Although I did take massive liberties with the order of the songs, I managed to incorporate every song in the album into a—hopefully—seamless timeline that tells a specific story. If you would like to (and I hope that you do) follow this story through the band’s album, the title of each chapter will tell you what song was used for that chapter. I will admit that, while I have used songs for inspiration many times while writing a story, this was the first time that I ever used a whole album as the basis for my plot development. It was a bigger challenge than I was expecting but also so much more creatively satisfying, as I got to manipulate not just 1 expressive outlet but 2. Just like writing, I think music is all about the context of the song and the hidden meaning buried deep within it, that can be twisted to fit the listener’s needs. I was amazed at how some of the pieces of this story just fell into place with specific songs, and I could see where the plot was headed without taking it there myself.

Also, on a smaller note, for those of you geeks who would find this interesting, I took the name for the Synathida pill (which restructures the male body, allowing the appendix to become uterine-like and house a fetus) from the scientific name Syngnathidae—the family of fish in which the males carry their offspring through gestation, instead of the female.

The title of the next chapter, if you would like to preview the song, is ‘Beside You’.


	2. Beside You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Another great big thank you to my betas, Jenamy and Haelia! And thank you to the people who have taken the time to comment or leave kudos—seeing that makes my heart happy! I want to warn you in advance, I'm new to AO3 and slightly computer illiterate, so adding chapters and all of this lark is throwing me for a loop. I'm especially confused by the option for beginning and ending chapter notes, so if something is off I'm sorry...

It had started a few years ago, as all the articles stated.  It began with mice.  Scientists had successfully been able to artificially impregnate male mice.  The female mice, responding to the hormones produced by the fertilized males, began lactating, even though they themselves were not pregnant.

But the males could not give birth to the offspring, and, after a few attempts to see what course nature would take on its own (in which the males and fetuses all, invariably, died) the scientists began to operate on the male mice to see if the babies could survive.  In the beginning, none did.

But then, slowly, after much experimentation, a few scientists were able to successfully pull live young from the fathers.

Still, the male mice inevitably died.

Until, after some time, they didn’t.

And when scientists were able to keep the neo-natal mice, and the males alive, they proceeded to experiment on rabbits.  And then pigs.  Then chimpanzees.  And, finally, humans.

A medical marvel, some hailed it as.  Others called it an abomination.

The lead scientist behind the experiments—Dr. Michelle Benson—was hailed as a genius, a madwoman, a creator, a butcher.  Whatever she was called, good or bad, almost everyone was in agreement that she was trying to play God, and that was the heart of the conflict.

John knew that Sherlock didn’t put much stock in God.  There was ever only science in his world.  His faith was built on facts, deductions, information, calculations.  There was only that which he could see, touch, feel with his own two hands.  Science and medicine and reason.  So of course the consulting detective had no qualms about taking the pill, Synathida.  Sherlock was a man of experimentation, of gaining first-hand knowledge, of risk for the sake of excitement.

John should have seen this coming from the first day that Sherlock had come home to their flat, agitated and interested by the publication of the article in his science magazine.

But he had, once again, underestimated Sherlock—something he was beginning to understand could have dire consequences.

No, instead of discussing the article with Sherlock like the consulting detective had wanted, John had opted to ignore it.  Ignore the idea, ignore the details, ignore Sherlock’s morbid curiosity with it.  Ignore the fact that it could give John something he had always wanted.  Something a deep-down part of him had wanted with Sherlock.

Well, that thought wasn’t going to be good for anyone, was it?  So he continued to ignore it, and he continued to hide the longing glances at families when they were out to dinner, or the flutters of his heartbeat when he held Molly’s new baby.

But he supposed he should have known that he couldn’t hide it forever.  Not from Sherlock.

He groaned as he stretched out on the shoddy little couch in Lestrade’s small, one bedroom flat.  Behind him, in the kitchen, he heard the Detective Inspector already up and making tea.

“Sleep well?” Greg asked him, much too chipper for the hour of the day.

John brought up a hand to work out the muscles in a crick in his neck.  “All right,” he answered, not voicing the thought that it was nothing compared to sleeping in his own bed, next to Sherlock, warm and comforting.

“Not that I’m complaining about you staying here—I like the company, see—but how long do you plan on keeping out of Baker Street?” Lestrade asked him, companionably.

John shrugged noncommittally.  When he had stormed out on Sherlock a week and a half ago, he had no idea as to where he was going.  He just knew that he couldn’t stay in the flat with Sherlock for a moment longer.  He had not planned on staying gone this long—after all, he had taken no clothing or anything of importance with him—but as time went on the thought of going back to Baker Street was giving him a severe case of anxiety, and he didn’t like to think about Sherlock or that damned pill or the fact that Sherlock was….

“As long as I need.  Hope that’s okay?”

“I told you, I don’t mind the company,” Lestrade said as he fixed himself a cup of tea and sat down next to John on the couch.  “But…you never really mentioned what you two were arguing over.  And you haven’t been down to a case with him since you started staying over.”

That perked John up, slightly.  “You’ve seen him?  He’s come to look at cases?”

Lestrade began to look a tad uncomfortable, as if he were being pulled into the middle of a situation he did not want to be in.  “Well, yeah.  I thought you knew that.”  He found the dregs in the bottom of his teacup suddenly very interesting.  “He never called to tell you when he was coming around?”

“No,” John said simply, letting the bitterness seep into his voice.  He sighed again and ran a hand through his already disheveled hair.

Lestrade gave a low whistle and small chuckle.  “Wow.  It must be a bad argument then, if he doesn’t even want to have his handler around,” he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Instead, John cringed at his words.  “Don’t call me that!” he said, and his voice was slightly louder than he had meant for it to be.

Taken aback by John’s sudden response, Lestrade held his empty hands up in submission.  “Okay, okay, sorry mate….You know I don’t mean anything by it.  It’s just a nickname everyone—”

“Well it’s not true,” John cut him off, petulantly.  “If I were able to handle him, my life would be a hell of a lot easier to deal with,” he finished, sounding more tired than he looked.

“What was it, then?” Greg asked, placing a friendly, comforting hand on John’s lap.  John could feel the heat of the detective’s palm through the thin material of his borrowed pajama bottoms and he tried to ignore the fact that he hadn’t been this close to another human being since a couple of weeks after Sherlock had taken the Synathida, due to the constant vomiting the pill—and then the subsequent pregnancy—had induced in his partner.  “He cheat on you with some science experiment?  Or…oh no, John.  You didn’t mess around on him, did you?”

“What?” John said, dragging his mind away from the thought of how long it had been since he had had sex and back into the room, and conversation he was having, with Lestrade.  “No!  No one cheated on anyone!”  

He and Sherlock had never told anyone at Scotland Yard about their relationship, but John had found that, over the past year and a half, he hadn’t really needed to.  Anyone who didn’t think they were sleeping together before they actually started were most definitely thinking so now (especially after the case with the exotic dancer who couldn’t keep her hands off of John) and most people made no mention of it, except for a few snide comments or jokes from Anderson or Donovan.

“Well, that’s good,” Greg said, with genuine relief in his voice.  “I’d hate to see what Sherlock would be like as a scorned lover.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, as John let the conversation die down and he worked up the courage to ask the question he had been wondering ever since Lestrade had told him that Sherlock was still going to crime scenes on a regular basis.

“How has he…been?”

He hated that he sounded like such a girl, but he couldn’t help it—he had to know.

“Been?” Lestrade repeated, not sure of what John was asking.

“When he comes to cases—does he look…well?” John tried a different approach.  He had to remind himself that all of the people down at Scotland Yard most likely didn’t know about Sherlock’s condition, and he wasn’t about to be the one who let the cat out of the bag.

“Aye, he looks well enough,” Lestrade answered, standing from his spot next to John to take his teacup back to the kitchen and clean up before heading out to work.  “A bit peaky, if you ask me.  Tired-looking, too.  More so than usual.”

John wondered if Sherlock was eating and sleeping enough.  He felt a sharp pang begin to grow in his chest from the fact that he wasn’t there with Sherlock to help the man through this.

Well, that was Sherlock’s own damn fault.  Not John’s.

Right.  And the sun really _did_ revolve around the earth.

“Time to get to work, then?” Greg asked when John made no attempt to speak.  “I’ll stop by the store on the way home and pick up a few things for dinner.  How’s spaghetti sound?”

John made a noise of approval in the back of his throat and continued to sit on the couch as Greg moved about the flat and finished his morning routine.  It was only after the detective had left that John finally mustered up the energy to haul himself off of the couch and go about preparing for his day at the surgery.

He hoped—prayed, really—that today would be different from the other days.  That he would, finally, get a moment of respite from the never-ending cycle of thoughts about Sherlock.  But yesterday had been proof that today would be the same as all the other days.

Xxx

John was beginning to worry.

Lestrade’s shift today was supposed to have ended around 6, and the doctor knew that he may very well have gotten called out to a late case, but it was almost midnight now and the detective had not called or even sent John a quick text like he had done the other two times that he had been late since John had come to stay with him.

No, something was wrong.  He knew it.

Just as he was about to give up the waiting game and head out to Scotland Yard, he heard Lestrade’s key turn the latch on his front door.  The detective came into the flat slowly, looking weary, and John instantly went to him to be sure he was all right.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Greg said, sounding slightly dazed.  “Jus’ been a long day, tha’s all.”

Convinced that he wasn’t hurt, John helped him down onto the couch and then went straight to the kitchen to make a pot of tea for the both of them.

“What happened?” John asked, filling the kettle and putting it on the stovetop.  “You look beat.  I was starting to get worried when you didn’t come home.”

“Yeah, sorry I couldn’t text,” Greg said with a deep sigh as he relaxed back into the cushions of the couch.  “We caught a late case.  High priority.  No one could leave until it was taken care of.”

“Murder?” John asked, making small talk to keep Greg awake until the tea was done.

“No, a hostage situation.  Those protesters for that new pill, Sinathed-something—”

“Synathida,” John said, lowly, his breath catching and his heart hammering away in his chest.

“Yeah, that one.  At the Yard we just call ‘em anti-Synaths.  Anyways, there was a rally at one of the medical plazas in downtown London, and a few of them were feeling froggy and they snatched up a pregnant bloke—just took him right as he was walking out the front door of the doctor’s office—and decided to try to make an example out of him.”

“Oh my God.”

“Don’t worry.  It took a little finesse, but we were able to take out a couple of the perps, and the others decided that their point had just gotten a whole lot smaller at that moment, so they bolted.  Police officers found them all and brought them in.”

“And what about the man?” John asked, pouring two cups of tea for them once the kettle began to go off and taking them carefully into the living room.  He handed one slowly to Lestrade.  “The pregnant one that they had taken hostage?”

“Hmm?  Oh, him.”  Lestrade reached out to take the cup from John, blowing on it slightly before taking a small sip.  “He was a bit shook up—naturally—but I wasn’t assigned to dealing with him, so I don’t know how he came out of it….It makes you think though, if all of this is worth it.”

John sat down heavily next to Lestrade on the couch, turning towards the detective inspector with a frown on his face.  “What?”

Lestrade shrugged.  “I’m just saying, look at all of the stuff that’s been going on.  All of the rallies and the protests against it.  The precinct over in Edinburgh said that they have dealt with a bomb threat related to it.  Arsons have jumped up 32 percent over the past couple of months, most of them home-related.  I don’t know, John.  If it were me, I don’t think I would risk any of it.”

A lump grew in John’s chest, making it uncomfortable and hard to breathe.  “Well, it’s not you, now is it?” he said to Lestrade before he could stop himself.  “So you don’t have to worry about any of it!”  The words came out harsher-sounding than he had meant them to, and as he stood quickly he noticed that his hands were shaking and his heart was hammering away in his chest in something that felt strangely like fear.

Here he was, safe and sound in Lestrade’s flat, going to his innocuous little job every day and happily ignoring everything that was happening in the world around him while Sherlock was….

Sherlock was alone.  John had left him that way.

Alone and pregnant in a world that was quickly becoming a dangerous place for males that were those things.

“John, what—” Greg began, trying to get up to reach out to the blonde doctor.  “Are you all right?”

But John moved away from him, walking towards the door of the flat decisively.  “I need some air,” he said.  “Going for a walk.”

He had barely made it out of Greg’s flat and onto the sidewalk when the car pulled up to the curb, as if it had been waiting for the moment that John stepped out of his friend’s flat.

He sighed as the door opened and Anthea’s pretty, smiling face looked up at him from the depths of the car.  “Hello, Dr. Watson.  I’m to bring you in.”

_Of course_ , John thought to himself as he slipped into the car and closed the door behind him.  There was no fighting it.

There never was.

Xxx

He was taken to Mycroft’s home this time.  Surprising, since the elder Holmes usually liked to make a more elaborate scene and meet with him in dark, abandoned factories or vacant lots out in the middle of nowhere.

But John could appreciate the attempt at comfort that Mycroft was putting forth.  John really would not have found it pleasant if he had spent half the night—late as it was already—in some dark, dingy, drafty building.  At least, this way, he got the chance to sit in front of a fire and have a hot cup of tea served to him by Mycroft’s secretary.

The drawing room of Mycroft’s home looked like something that a Holmes would have in his house.  It was filled with books of all different genres and editions, and there were antiques and curiosities placed throughout the room, some more dead than others.  John sat in a wing-backed chair by the fire in silence as Anthea brought in the tea service, and Mycroft took his time mixing his cup.  Mycroft had not brought him here to listen to John talk, after all, and John knew this.

When his tea was finally prepared to his specifications, the elder Holmes brother at last turned his attention onto John.

“He did this for you, you know,” he said in way of greeting.  John wasn’t surprised—neither of the Holmes men were much for polite pleasantries.

“Please, spare me, Mycroft,” he said with a long suffering sigh.  “Sherlock doesn’t do anything if it’s not for himself.”

The older gentleman smiled slightly, lifting his teacup to try to hide it.  “Well, I won’t lie—that still holds true,” he acknowledged after he had taken a sip.  “But you are the first person in his life that he changes the rules for.  After Moriarty, he didn’t have to come back.  In fact, it would have been safer for him if he had not.  But he couldn’t bear to leave you that way.”  He set the delicate cup back onto the saucer with a harsh clink and turned his sharp, dangerous eyes onto John.  “You have always had a powerful sway over my brother, Dr. Watson, whether you believe it or not.  And now, with this…he told me that he wanted to give this to you, this thing that you would not be able to have otherwise.  Twisted as his intentions may be, he had an honorable idea at the very heart of it.”

John scoffed.  Honorable idea his arse.  “Yes, well, he really muddied it up, didn’t he?” he told the other man.  “If he had talked to me about it, Mycroft, _discussed_ with me what he was thinking…we could have made the decision together.”

“Would you have said yes, John?” Mycroft asked, his voice calm and level in the deep silence of the room.  “Would you have taken even a moment to think about it and say yes?”

John sat very quiet, not answering.

“I think we both know the answer,” Mycroft announced, sounding almost pleased to have made his point so effortlessly.  “You are a man of medicine, and I know what you think of this pill.  Unsafe and hazardous and unpredictable.  There is no way you would have let Sherlock take it, even to give you something that you so desperately want.  Sherlock knew this.  And so he took the decision out of your hands, Dr. Watson.  You get all of the rewards without any of the guilt, now.”

“The rewards?” he asked in disbelief.  “This isn’t a game, Mycroft!  There are no winners and losers, and there certainly are no rewards.”

“Are there not?” the elder Holmes brother asked carefully.  “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see about that.”

John stood from his seat quickly, because he couldn’t bear to sit in front of Mycroft and continue with the conversation for a second longer.  “Are we done now?  Because I think I’ve heard quite enough.”

“Very well, Dr. Watson.  Anthea will escort you home, if you insist on walking out on this discussion.”

John ignored the jab and moved towards the drawing room exit, intent on going back to Lestrade’s and falling into a very deep sleep, when Mycroft’s voice behind him stopped him in his tracks.

“He has a checkup next week, at the family planning clinic in the Renaissance Medical Plaza.  Tuesday, at 8 am.”

“Why would I care about that?” John asked quietly, stopping in spite of himself.

“I’m not saying you do,” Mycroft said, a devious smile tugging at the edges of his lips.  “I’m just putting the information out there.  Do with it what you will.”

John chose not to answer him.  Instead, he hurriedly made his way towards the door, intent on getting out of the room as quick as he could.  He almost managed it, too, before Mycroft’s voice called out to him again.

“He can’t do this without you, John.  He is not as strong as he thinks himself to be.  And he will not take help from any other.  Only you.  It’s always been only you.  Don’t leave him alone in this.”

John stopped, his hand on the brass doorknob for only a moment before he yanked the door open and flew out of the room, intent on never seeing Mycroft Holmes again for as long as he lived.

Xxx

Over the next few days, John was distracted and on edge.  He snapped at Lestrade for no reason and felt horrible afterwards.  After all, the detective was being much more gracious than John would have expected, letting the blonde doctor bunk on his couch for what could possibly be an eternity.

The night before Sherlock’s appointment, John tossed and turned on Lestrade’s couch, restless and agitated.  There was a nagging, niggling feeling in the back of his mind and in the middle of his chest that he could not get rid of.

He never got to sleep, and when the first gray streams of light began to illuminate the corners of Lestrade’s living room through the shabby curtain over the dirty window, John gave up the battle and sat up, rubbing at his face tiredly.

He got his few things together and washed up quietly, not wanting to bother Greg, and made his way out of the flat silently, leaving only a made-up couch and a small note of thanks scribbled on the pad by the phone.

It was time he went back to where he belonged.  It was time he went home.

Xxx

The streets were busy this time of morning with all of the commuters and people heading to work.  But as he made his way to the Renaissance Medical Plaza, he noticed that the crowds of people he was passing were getting distinctly more restless, and, as he got closer to the doctor’s office, there were many who were holding up signs with hateful messages scrawled on them in red ink.

John hunkered into himself and fought his way through the back end of the extremely large crowd that was gathering around the front of the doctor’s offices.  The crowd was split up on either side of the walkway that led to the front doors, and John could see police officers already patrolling the sidewalk, making sure that the anti-Synaths were not being too disruptive.  John had almost made it to the front lines of the crowd when three cop cars suddenly pulled up, lights flashing but sirens off.  

The crowd around John suddenly surged forward, voices rising and people pushing against him.  He got caught between two people on either side of him, and he stumbled forward, using the person in front of him to steady himself.

This was madness.  He couldn’t believe how agitated the crowd was getting.  There was no way—

His thought got cut off as the doors to the police cars opened, and the crowd around him began to yell and shove harder, pushing itself around the men who were being escorted by the police officers out of the cars.

There were 9, maybe 10 men that were being pulled into a tight circle by the police officers flanking them, and moving slowly down the walkway that had not stayed clear of protesters.  John searched the faces of each man that was brought out of the escort cars, seeing fear and anxiety and panic and—

There.

One man whose face was impassive.  Whose cold, calculating eyes took in everything around him and brushed it off, as if it were nothing.

“Sherlock!” he called out, trying to get the brunette’s attention, but the crowd was growing louder around him, and he could barely hear his own voice over the din.  “ _Sherlock_!!”

He tried to push his way past the crowd that was surrounding him, tried to get closer to the small group of scared-looking men who were being escorted through the throng of people and towards the front doors of the clinic, but he couldn’t get any nearer.  The people in front of him were thrusting forward their signs and their hands, shouting obscenities that were lost in the din of everyone else around them.

There were so many people….

And then, suddenly, through a break in the crowd, John could see Sherlock, taller than all the other men being escorted with him, in the center of their small group, his sharp, pale eyes looking around him calculatingly.

“ _SHERLOCK_!”

He lunged forward, uncaring of the protesters he pushed aside.  At last Sherlock seemed to hear him, because he turned towards John, but the crowd was still too thick and he couldn’t see the blonde man.

But John could see him.  And he could see in that brief second when he heard his name being called that Sherlock was searching for him, hoping to see him, forehead furrowed and eyes moving over the crowd desperately….

John had seen that look in Sherlock’s face few enough times to realize with sudden dread what it was.  Sherlock was scared.

His Sherlock—so brave and fearless—was in the middle of a hundred men and women who were pushing against him, yelling obscenities towards him, throwing things at him, and John could see the concern in the deep lines of his face.

He pushed harder at the human wall in front of him, shoving in earnest now, and he began to feel the bodies give way against his harsh hands.

“Sherlock!”

He was closer now, and still pushing through the crowd, coming up to the walkway that the men were being escorted down.  As he called out Sherlock’s name one more time, the tall brunette turned once more, searching for him again.  Sherlock caught sight of him just as someone shoved at John harshly, sending him stumbling.

“John!”

He regained his footing and pushed back against the people around him, shouldering them away so that he could have room to breathe.  A few feet ahead of him, Sherlock was fighting against the small group of men being escorted towards the building, trying to get to John, but the men were panicking around him, afraid to get too close to the protesters.  They kept Sherlock within their ranks, hands coming up to pull him back in when he tried to get away from them.

“John!”  He saw Sherlock reach a hand out, and he tried desperately to grab at it, but the brunette was too far away, the crowd was too strong against him, and he couldn’t reach.

The group of patients passed by John and continued down the walkway, heading for the front door to the building.  When he finally made it to the front lines, John reached out quickly for the first police officer he could find.

“I need to get into the building!”

“Sorry, sir.  No one in except patients.”

“But, I—I’m with one of them.  One of the patients.  I’m the—the….” He trailed off because he didn’t know exactly what he was trying to say.  He was having to scream at the man to be heard over the crowd, and he became increasingly aware of the protesters closest to him who were turning to stare at him.

The thought rapidly crossed his mind that this could turn ugly very, very quickly.

But the officer would not be swayed.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we have strict orders not to let anyone—”

“But I need to be in there with him!” John shouted, frustrated.  “I need to know if he’s okay, I haven’t seen him since he told me about this.  Please!”  And then, in desperation, he pleaded.  “Go ask him.  His name is Sherlock Holmes.  I am John Watson.  Just please, go let him know that I’m here…”

The officer looked at him calculatingly, and finally, with a deep sigh, nodded.  “Follow me and stay close,” he said as he turned into the mob and started making his way towards the door.  Once they had made their way to the front of the office, he turned towards John once again.  “Wait right here.  I’ll go in and ask if they want you in there.”

John nodded at him and the man left, leaving John to fight the mob that was closing in around him.  He couldn’t believe that so many had shown up to protest this clinic’s involvement.  He had always thought that their neighborhood was accepting of alternate lifestyles, but this…this proved just how very, very wrong he was.

Suddenly, a loud whistle split the air close to him, and he turned towards the front doors to see the officer waving him over.  He shoved against the thick wall of people standing in his way, using more force than may have been necessary, but he didn’t care.  All he could think about was getting away from that crowd, getting to the safety of the building and seeing…

Sherlock.

The dark haired man sat in a chair along the far wall, away from all of the other patients, staring apprehensively at the doors as John fell through them, out of breath and slightly disoriented from the closeness of the people who had been around him.

He didn’t move as John strode across the empty waiting room towards him—he wanted John to come to him, that was clear to the doctor—but John didn’t care.  He would go to Sherlock, he would give it all.  It didn’t matter if Sherlock wouldn’t meet him in the middle, he didn’t care about that anymore.  All he wanted to know was that Sherlock was safe, and Sherlock was fine and Sherlock was—

In his arms, crushing John to him, grasping onto the doctor’s shoulders with hands that were shaking only slightly and burying his face into the crook of John’s neck, breathing in deep.

“Sherlock, I’m sorry.  I’m so, so sorry.  Lestrade was telling me about the protests and the arsons and the kidnappings and I knew that your appointment was today and I…I got so scared that you would…”

He got cut off by Sherlock’s lips pressing insistently against his own.

For a moment he stood, too stunned to kiss Sherlock back.  Sherlock had never been one for public displays of affection and John was caught off guard by the suddenness and ferocity of Sherlock’s kiss.

But those things melted away as John opened up to the kiss, relief and happiness flooding him and washing away all of the things in the past.  The fight and the harsh words and the fear.

Mycroft had been right.  After seeing the mob of protesters today, John knew that this was not something for Sherlock to do by himself.  They needed to be together, to be by each other’s side, to help each other make it through this.

He would do that for Sherlock.

He would do anything for Sherlock.

This was where he belonged, right here beside Sherlock, holding the man’s hand as they made it through this ordeal together.

They were broken apart by a small sound off to the side of them, a throat being cleared softly.  When they pulled away from each other, they saw a short, round woman in a white doctor’s coat smiling at them, holding a clipboard up to her chest.

“Mr. Holmes?  I’m Dr. Lambert.  Dr. Greenwhich is still with one of his other patients, so I’ll be taking care of you today.”  The woman turned towards John and her smile seemed to grow to epic proportions.  “I don’t believe anyone here has met your friend, Mr. Holmes,” she said pleasantly.  “Is this the fath—”

“John Watson,” John cut her off, holding out his hand for her to shake.  As much as he wanted to be here with Sherlock, he was still a little trepidatious about the whole situation.  It was still so new, and John knew that it would take a whole lot of getting used to before he was okay with words like ‘father’ and ‘baby’.

If Sherlock caught what John was doing, he said nothing about it, letting it slip past unmentioned.  For once, John was thankful for Sherlock’s silence.

The doctor led the two men back into the exam rooms past the lobby of the main office.  She tried making them as comfortable as possible as she rummaged about the small cupboards and drawers in the small exam room for her equipment, but John couldn’t help but feel a little out of place.  It was the first time he had been to an appointment like this and he was feeling completely out of his depth.

Sherlock, he noticed, looked no more uncomfortable than he did when he was in the morgue at St. Bart’s, though he did seem slightly more bored.  John could do nothing more than stand quietly by him as he settled his long, slender frame onto the exam chair, letting Dr. Lambert pull and tug his shirt and trousers out of the way as she squeezed a generous amount of gel onto the pale skin of his abdomen.

“Okay,” she said, pulling out a fetal Doppler from its spot in one of the drawers along the wall of the room.  “Are you ready to hear it?”

Lying on the chair, Sherlock nodded, and John caught the quick glance of his eyes up to John’s, to be sure the doctor had not gone anywhere.

The doctor pressed the small wand part of the Doppler to Sherlock’s lower abdomen, digging into the soft flesh.  It looked uncomfortable as she moved the stick around to find the perfect spot, and he saw Sherlock grimace slightly.

But the look of discomfort faded almost instantly as a sound, soft and swift and deep, filled the silence of the room.

An unfathomable roll, like the sound of far off thunder, constant, consistent, continuous.  If filled John’s ears and stopped his heart.  He suddenly realized that Sherlock’s hand was in his own, squeezing harshly, but he didn’t remember ever reaching out for the other man.  It didn’t matter though.  They were connected, the three of them, by sound and touch and breath.  By the very beat that filled the room.  His hand came up to run shaking fingers through Sherlock’s hair, brushing the curls out of his face so that John could see him, see this man who now not only held John’s heart, but their baby’s as well.

_Their baby_.

He could hardly believe it.  How could he have thought he could possibly stay away from this?  How could he have thought he had wanted nothing to do with it?

He called himself twenty kinds of idiot and laughed out loud from the sheer relief that he had not been stupid enough to ruin this.  Sherlock answered his laugh with a chuckle of his own, sounding relieved as well, as if he had thought exactly the same thing as John.

And then John remembered that it was _Sherlock_ and he very well might be thinking the exact same thing as John.

“Congratulations, guys.  You seem to have a very healthy-sounding baby on your hands.”

Xxx

They waited until the police had cleared out the protest mob before leaving.  After the story Greg had told John yesterday, the blonde man was not about to take any chances.  Surprisingly, Sherlock agreed with him and they waited for what had seemed like forever, until John had deemed it clear enough outside to leave and head back home.

When they got back to their flat, Mrs. Hudson had greeted John happily, saying that she was glad he had taken Sherlock back.  The consulting detective did nothing to save John from her hugs, or clarify her thoughts.

“Have you told her?” John asked quietly, when Mrs. Hudson had finally let him go and rushed downstairs to make them all some tea.

“Of course not.  I haven’t told anyone,” Sherlock answered, heading straight for the couch and plopping down tiredly in it.

John could see the lines of fatigue in the set of Sherlock’s face, the dark circles under his eyes and the paleness of his skin.  He realized with some embarrassment that he had no idea how Sherlock had been fairing with the pregnancy for the past two weeks since John had been gone and he was reluctant to bring it up, even though he really wanted to know.

“So, how have—” he started awkwardly, but just then Mrs. Hudson bustled back into their flat, carrying a tray of biscuits to go along with their tea.

“All right boys.  It will just be another few—”

“Mrs. Hudson,” John cut her off, smiling at her softly.  “Do you mind giving us a few minutes?  I’d like for us to talk over some things for a bit.”

“Oh, of course, dearie, how silly of me.  You’ve only just come back home.  I’m sorry.  I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”

John waited for a moment after Mrs. Hudson left, moving carefully to sit on the edge of the couch next to Sherlock and brushing the dark curls off of his forehead with a soft touch, almost afraid that Sherlock would push his hand away.  “How have you been, then?  Still got the—the morning sickness?”

Sherlock groaned at the reminder of it and shuffled uncomfortably on the cushions of the couch, but he didn’t pull away from John’s hand, or ask the doctor to move.  “It’s been dreadful,” he answered, squeezing his eyes shut at the thought of it.  “Every day I think I’ve vomited myself into death by dehydration, but it just keeps coming.  And the cramping has been getting worse, too.  How do women stand this?”

John chuckled softly.  “Well, women are made more for it than you are, Sherlock Holmes.”

“I can do anything just as well as anyone else,” Sherlock answered, bitterly.  “Better even.”

“Of course you can,” John said with a sigh.  “Come on.  Let’s turn in early tonight.  I bet you could use the rest.”

He hauled Sherlock off of the couch and wrapped his arms around the tall figure.  It felt good to be this near to Sherlock again; he hadn’t realized how much he had missed it.

The doctor maneuvered Sherlock into the downstairs bedroom, Sherlock’s room that they had taken to sleeping in together after they had made their relationship physical.  As gently as he could, he laid Sherlock on the bed, undressing him slowly and pulling the covers up around him when he had removed all of his clothing, tucking him in, like a child.  Then he got up and walked around the bed.

“Where are you going?” Sherlock asked, turning around quickly so that he could keep his eyes on John.

“I’m just coming over to my side,” John explained, pulling off his own jumper and taking off his trousers.  When he was undressed he slipped into the bed beside Sherlock, moving closer to the brunette, who was settling back into the mattress, pushing against John as the doctor snuggled close to him.

They laid there like that for an immeasurable amount of time, John’s hands wandering over Sherlock’s body in a soothing manner, feeling the ribs that were poking through Sherlock’s skin—a definitive sign that the brunette was not eating nearly enough, still—the soft hair that fell lightly across the top of his cheekbone, the belly that was just slightly more full than John had ever remembered seeing or feeling it….

After some time, Sherlock turned onto his back and moved his face to look at John.

“Why aren’t you asleep?” the doctor asked.  “I know you must be tired.”

“I can’t sleep,” Sherlock said, his deep baritone voice a quiet whisper in the darkness of their room.  “I keep thinking about all of those people at the clinic today—the protesters.  I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life.”  He was silent for a moment, and John had the distinct impression that he was choosing his words carefully.  “It’s made me wonder…if I was wrong to do this.  They could escalate at any moment, and I still have so long before the end….What if they decide to come after all of the people who have taken the pill?  What if the police can’t stop all of them?  Have I done something that I can’t handle, John?  Have I finally gotten in over my head?”

“Listen to me, Sherlock,” John said, wrapping his arms tightly around the other man and holding him close in the darkness.  “You are so brave, and so strong, and so amazing.  I would never, not in a million years, have the courage to do what you’re doing.”

“It may not be courage, John,” Sherlock whispered into John’s chest.  “It may just be selfishness, or short-sightedness, or madness.”

“No.”  John shook his head, even though Sherlock couldn’t see him through the blackness.  “Even if I believed you did this just for the puzzle, we both know what is at stake now.  And you are not backing out.  That’s courage, Sherlock,” he said, giving the man wrapped in his arms a squeeze.  “Whatever you may think, whatever others may tell you…listen to what _I’m_ telling you, right now.  For you to have walked out of that door this morning and gone to Dr. Greenwhich’s…that took a bravery I’m not sure I would even have been able to muster.  This thing that you’re doing for—for me, for _us_ …it’s amazing, and I just want to thank you.  And I want you to know that I won’t leave you to do this on your own again.  I’ll be here with you for the rest of it…no matter what it is.  I will stay right beside you the whole way through and all of those people out there—all of those protesters—they will have to make it through me to get to you.  I won’t let anybody hurt you.  Or our baby.”

Sherlock was quiet for a long moment, and when he finally spoke again his voice was steady and strong.  “I’m not scared of those people, John.  I can protect myself from them.”

John sighed softly, finding the top of Sherlock’s head with his lips.  He placed a small kiss there and then smoothed out the hair with his hand.  “I saw you out there today, Sherlock,” he said.  “I saw the look on your face.  It’s okay.  It’s scary and it’s confusing, but I promise you that I will fight with every breath in me to make sure nothing will hurt you.  You trust me, don’t you?  That I will protect you and our baby with everything I have in me?”

“John, I…yes.  I trust you.”

“Good,” the doctor said, a smile tugging at his lips.  “Sleep, Sherlock.  I will stay right here beside you.  I promise.”

He felt Sherlock press back into him, and John maneuvered to fit himself right behind Sherlock, their bodies pressed close to each other.  John’s hand moved to lie across Sherlock’s abdomen, fingers searching carefully against Sherlock’s skin, and the brunette man drifted off into sleep, the pressure of John’s hand a comforting presence that he felt even in unconsciousness.

X.X.X  


A/N: Next chapter, ‘Cross my heart’.  It’s a bit fluffier, too—don’t worry.  This story won’t be all about the angst and drama, lol.

 


	3. Cross My Heart

Notes: Many hugs and thanks must go out to my beta, Jenamy, for keeping the ball moving on this story so well and fine tuning everything! You are greatness!

X.X.X

During the next couple of weeks, the men of Baker St began a new ritual to start off their days. Every morning Sherlock would wake to the smells of a healthy—and nausea-inducing—breakfast being made in the kitchen, and he would lounge in bed lazily until John got tired of waiting for him, and the doctor would come into the bedroom to rouse him out from under the sheets.

Most mornings, Sherlock was surprised to find that he had slept most of the night away, but he was still tired when John kicked him out of bed as breakfast was finishing cooking. He tried voicing his concern to the doctor, but John didn’t seem to think it was worthy of any sort of alarm.

“Your body is adjusting to being pregnant,” John told him patiently one morning, after breakfast had been eaten (or, at least, pushed around the plate by Sherlock) and the doctor had him lying on his back on the couch. For the past few days, the blonde man had been indulging in a new morning habit of trying to feel for the top of Sherlock’s appendix through the consulting detective’s lower abdomen. “Your body is working overtime developing the placenta for the fetus. And your metabolism and hormone levels are surging, which triggers a decrease in blood sugar and blood pressure. All of these result in pregnancy fatigue. Don’t worry; your energy level will increase over the next few weeks once the placenta construction is completed.”

Sherlock hummed a response, only half-listening to John as the doctor continued to push around his intestines. Most mornings John ended up throwing in the towel after 10 or 15 minutes of poking and prodding uselessly at Sherlock’s stomach, earning nothing but a smack of the hand and a round of curses when he inevitably annoyed the pregnant man too much. But this morning, only a few minutes into his search, John’s fingers stilled, pressed deep into the soft flesh of Sherlock’s right side. “I think I can feel it.”

“Really?”

Sherlock put down the newspaper he had been reading with some interest. Every morning he resigned himself to letting John poke around his belly incessantly, and he had tried his best to keep his mouth shut and his temper in check, but he had thought that John wouldn’t find anything of interest for weeks yet.

“Yeah, just a bit. I only noticed it ‘cause it feels slightly different from yesterday. It’s grown. Just a bit, but it’s grown.” John smiled at him then, a radiant, blinding smile that had Sherlock responding with one of his own before the brunette man even knew what he was doing.

He knew what John was thinking. This was the first time, other than the sonogram the other week which had ended too soon, that they had actual, solid proof of the transformation going on inside Sherlock’s body—other than the bathroom being constantly in use whenever John wanted to use it.

With the smile still on his face, John leaned over Sherlock’s body until their faces were aligned and kissed him passionately, his hands still resting on Sherlock’s stomach between them. They had shared quick, chaste kisses in the weeks since Sherlock had finished ovulating (both before and after John had found out about the pregnancy and left) but Sherlock had been feeling so sick, first from the Synathida and then from the resulting pregnancy, that the two weeks of love-making during his ovulation period had been nothing more than a brief interim between bouts of vomiting and cramping.

And he could tell the moment that John’s kiss changed—became too surging, too passionate—that this was not going to end happily for the doctor.

“How would you like to celebrate with a little pregnancy sex?” John asked, his mouth parting from Sherlock’s to explore the brunette’s neck.

Sherlock held back a groan by the barest of threads and he pushed ever so lightly against John’s body with his hands, hating that he was denying the man but unable to stomach the thought of having sex. “John, I doubt very much that you would appreciate it if I threw up all over during the middle of foreplay.”

John would not be so easily denied, though. “I wouldn’t care,” he whispered against Sherlock’s skin, his hands roaming upwards now, towards the top buttons of Sherlock’s pajama top. He had moved to lie gently across Sherlock as the brunette man still lounged on the couch, careful to keep any pressure off of the man below him.

Sherlock appreciated the sentiment, but he couldn’t help but give John a ‘you’ve got to be joking’ look. He said nothing else and waited, unmoving and un-responding to John’s advances until the doctor finally gave up with a sigh, dropping his head in frustration onto Sherlock’s chest.

“Sherlock, it’s been ages since we’ve had sex!” he complained, sounding whinier than Sherlock was sure he intended. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone this long without it.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes at John’s dramatics. “15 weeks ago we had enough sex to last you through next year, John,” he chastised. “Leave me alone and let me curl into myself and die in peace.” To drive his point home, Sherlock began moving beneath the doctor, forcing John to shift off of him and allowing Sherlock to curl almost all 6 feet of himself up into a slightly-ridiculous looking ball on the short couch cushions.

“But, Sherlock,” John protested, not being deterred, “15 weeks ago you weren’t nearly as sexy as you are now.”

Sherlock scoffed at John’s words. ‘ _Sexy_ ’ was not how Sherlock would describe himself right now. Not by a long shot. What little breakfast he had eaten that morning was roiling around uncomfortably in his stomach and if the past 12 weeks were any indication, the food was dangerously close to coming out one of two ways. The pain in his side had been so horrible last night that he had not been able to move, and John (ever the cuddler) had snuggled so close to him that Sherlock had ended up sweating through his pajamas for most of the night. He could still smell the dried perspiration on his clothes. Not to mention the fact that he was bloated from his hands to his stomach and all the way down to his legs and feet.

No. Definitely _not_ sexy.

He told John as much but the blonde refused to take his hands off of Sherlock, continuing to rub them along any part of the consulting detective Sherlock would let him touch.

“Well, I think you’ve never been more irresistible,” John said, in what Sherlock had come to know as his ‘bedroom voice’. Usually, that alone was enough to set Sherlock off, but it seemed futile today.

“Then you’re an idiot,” Sherlock said snappishly, pushing John’s hands off of him completely and turning his back to John as he flipped over on the couch. “God, I hope our child isn’t as stupid as you are.”

Xxx

After a very strenuous day of no sex, John couldn’t help but fall into bed that night, tense and wound up rather pathetically, but he had told himself that he wouldn’t continue to paw at Sherlock like a horny school boy anymore. He had _some_ dignity, after all.

Well, a little bit of dignity, he corrected as Sherlock came into the bedroom, dressing gown off and wearing only his pajama bottoms and a thin, white cotton t-shirt. It set off Sherlock’s pale skin and dark hair perfectly, and John could do nothing but stare like a loon.

As the tall man carefully crawled into bed, grimacing at the uncomfortable cramps he was still feeling in his back and lower abdomen, John quickly moved to the edge of his side of the bed, turning his back to Sherlock and patting the comforter down as a barrier between them.

“What, no cuddles tonight?” Sherlock asked teasingly.

“No,” John groused. “You don’t deserve any cuddles.”

“Oh no,” Sherlock moaned with fake sorrow. “Whatever will I do without you clinging to me while I try to sleep comfortably at night?” he mocked, and John could feel him settling down on his side of the bed with a happy sigh, pulling most of the covers around himself and leaving John with only a sliver to keep himself warm.

“Good night, John,” he said cheerily. “I hope you sleep well, because I think I will finally manage tonight.”

With a sharp _click_ Sherlock reached over and turned off the bedside lamp, throwing the room into darkness and cutting off John’s retort in the process.

Xxx

“That’s it, I can’t take it anymore.”

John heard the words from what seemed to be a great distance, but he didn’t really comprehend them until he felt hands, rough and hard, pushing at him harshly.

“Wha’? Wha’s happenin’?” he asked sleepily, blinking open his eyes blearily to see that the bedroom was still completely dark. It must have been the middle of the night.

“Out of the bed, John,” he heard Sherlock’s strident voice saying through the blackness, and he felt the hands push against him once more.

“Sherlock, I don’t—”

“Out!” the other man shouted with a particularly rough shove.

“Wh-why?” John asked, disoriented, as he practically fell off of the mattress and stood, cold and confused, next to the bed that Sherlock had just pushed him out of.

“I cannot sleep with your constant cuddling!” Sherlock enlightened him. “And your snoring. And your turning.” John felt a pillow slam against his body, and the thin flat sheet got thrown at him shortly afterwards. “Get out of my room.”

“Are you—are you kicking me out of our bed?!” John asked, his mind still not wrapping itself around the situation.

“Yes,” he heard Sherlock say shortly, and judging by the muffled sound of his voice, he was fairly certain the other man had already snuggled comfortably back into his pillow while John stood in the middle of their dark, cold room, perplexed and groggy.

“But—but…you can’t kick me out! I sleep here!”

“There is another perfectly fine bedroom not being used upstairs,” came Sherlock’s reasonable answer. “Or you could sleep on the couch. I don’t care where you go just as long as I can’t hear you snore through my door.”

“Sherlock—” John began to protest, but the other man cut him off rather unceremoniously.

“Unless you are about to give me a back rub, I suggest you leave. I need to get some sleep.”

John stood, in stunned silence, for only a moment more before the chill of the room became too much for him and he turned finally to stomp out of Sherlock’s bedroom, slamming the door in a snit behind him.

Xxx

It made John happy to know that Sherlock seemed to be doing all of the work, for a change.

The brunette man had told John the other day that he felt like he was running a baby-making factory that was in business 24/7, and, as the only employee, he was on the clock around the clock. John knew that the constant fatigue was coming from the fact that Sherlock’s pregnant body was working harder at rest than it ever did when it was on the run, constructing a placenta and amniotic sac and even a bloody _baby_ for crying out loud, but Sherlock would not have any excuses for it.

John told him that the placenta was still not done growing, but that it shouldn’t be much longer until the fatigue went away. Not too long into the second trimester, at the latest, but Sherlock seemed to think that his body should somehow be more resilient than other people’s, and the fatigue and cramps did nothing but make him even more moody than he usually was.

John hoped his estimation of symptoms was correct—he didn’t know how much more of this he could take. He was feeling sympathy-fatigue, running himself ragged as he tried to cater to Sherlock’s every whim without a noise of discontent, and the results left him tired and overworked, even when he was just having a relaxing day with Sherlock.

Another thing that was beginning to catch the doctor’s eye was Sherlock’s wardrobe.

The consulting detective had taken to wearing his pajamas for the majority of the time that they were alone in the flat together. John suspected that this was because all of his regular trousers were beginning to fit a bit too tight, but Sherlock never made mention of it. But, for John, Sherlock’s swelling abdomen could not be ignored. It was nothing drastic, just the beginnings of what looked like a cute little holiday pudge. John knew it couldn’t be from the food—Sherlock still hardly ever ate anything—so that could only mean that it was from his growing appendix, and the baby inside.

But when Sherlock began to wear regular t-shirts instead of his usual, tailored, button-down dress shirts when they went out of the apartment for a case, John knew he was in a bad way. Sherlock was not one to go out dressed like a ‘commoner’, as he had so eloquently put it before in the past, and John knew that this was just another thing that would send the temperamental brunette into a huff with little or no prompting.

But John could do nothing more than stand by and wait for the inevitable Sherlock-ian hissy fit to pass, and hope he was still alive afterwards.

Xxx

A couple of weeks into Sherlock’s second trimester, the brunette opened his eyes blearily one morning to find that it wasn’t the vicious nausea that had woken him. As usual, John was in the kitchen making breakfast, and for the first time in what felt like months, Sherlock’s stomach grumbled hungrily at the smells that were wafting in through his closed door.

He got out of bed of his own accord, feeling amazingly better than he could ever remember himself feeling in the past few months. And when he went to the bathroom to wash up, he was surprised and delighted to find that the first thing he wanted to do did not involve vomiting.

This was promising. Very promising indeed.

When he was finished in the bathroom, he went straight to the kitchen, stealing a piece of toast that John had set out in the middle of the table as the doctor finished up with the eggs and sausage. John didn’t seem to hear him at first, but once Sherlock pulled a chair out at the table and sat in it, patiently waiting for breakfast to be served, the doctor turned around slowly, spatula in hand and eyes opened wide in disbelief.

“You’re up.”

It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement of incredulity.

“It would seem so, yes,” Sherlock answered, snatching up another piece of toast and munching on it quietly.

“Okay,” John said cautiously. “Feeling better, then?”

Sherlock thought about the answer to John’s question as the doctor turned back to the frying pan on the stove, flipping the contents once more and then switching the burner off.

“Yeah,” he finally answered, a relieved smile flitting across his face. “I guess you could say that.”

The doctor served Sherlock and then himself, piling a heaping portion of eggs onto the brunette’s plate, like he did every other morning.

But, unlike every other morning, he was not disappointed by Sherlock’s appetite. The consulting detective attacked the food on his plate with a vigor that he had never put into eating before and tried to ignore the man sitting across the table from him, staring openly as he shoveled food into his mouth.

When he could take no more, he looked up at John with a deep frown. “What?” he snapped through a mouthful of sausage.

“N-nothing,” John stammered, realizing he was staring and averting his eyes down to his own plate. “It’s just…you’re…eating.”

Sherlock, not liking the fuss John was making, put down his fork rather forcefully. “I could not, if you would prefer.”

“No, no!” John said quickly, his face flushing as he realized that he was turning the whole situation into a spectacle. “Please, continue. I’ll—I’ll stop.”

The rest of the meal was spent with Sherlock trying hard to eat his remaining meal at a more human pace, and John looking at everything in the small kitchen except the consulting detective, afraid he would scare him off like some sort of wild, rabid animal.

Xxx

Sherlock knew it was going to be a good day when he decided to get dressed in regular clothes (and not stay in his pajamas for as long as he could) before he was even called about a case.

He was a little frustrated to find that his trousers, perfectly tailored to fit his slim hips, were a bit tighter than they used to be. Nothing too awful, just a slight annoyance as they pressed along his belly a little too firmly. His shirts, looser than his pants usually were, still fit him rather well, and he looked himself over in the mirror on the back of his door quickly before stepping out, noting that he didn’t look too different from his usual self, and certainly not man-pregnant.

“Big day planned?” John asked as he finished up his morning tea while reading the paper in his chair, in the few minutes he had before he went off to the surgery.

“I thought I’d square away a few of the smaller cases,” Sherlock answered, gathering some paperwork off of the desk and end tables. He had been avoiding what work he could over the past few weeks. He only ever went out to cases that Lestrade called him to, ignoring his personal work, and only then if the case was at least a 9.5.

But today, he felt well enough to actually get out of the flat, something he had despised doing ever since he had taken the Synathida.

“Oh, okay,” John said, and there was something peculiar about his tone as he shuffled his paper back together and avoided eye contact with Sherlock.

Although Sherlock was a genius in his own right, and he could read people like a book—from top to bottom and back to front, without any real effort at all—he was still getting used to the intricate emotions that came about in an emotional relationship with another human being. He knew something was bothering John; his _“Oh, okay,”_ answer was clipped and the tone of his voice had lost all emotion, indicating that John was closing something off from Sherlock. But the brunette couldn’t think of what it might be for the life of him.

“John, if you have something to say, just say it.” More straight-forward than he would usually be, but he found that he was feeling too good at the moment to waste a second of it on trivial things, when he finally had the energy to go out and do some actual work.

John seemed to realize this, too, and he sighed, standing up from his chair and heading towards Sherlock to place a small kiss on the brunette’s lips as he gathered his jacket and keys by the doorway.

“It’s nothing, really,” John said softly, “just…promise me you’ll be careful out there from now on.”

Sherlock took a moment to pull John into a tight hug, glad for the doctor’s concern but even more glad that John wasn’t making a bigger issue out of the situation.

“Don’t worry, John,” he said, releasing the shorter man. “I’m always careful.”

Xxx

Sherlock had been right—his day had turned out splendidly. The nausea—which he had half-feared would come back at any moment all day long—had not returned, and he had managed to not only keep down his breakfast, but a small lunch as well, and he had gotten a fair amount of work done, too.

Yes, rather a good day.

So good, in fact, that he climbed the stairs to their flat in a hurry, taking them two at a time, and he walked in to find John tidying up his desk to make it more accessible now that Sherlock was up and about again. Sherlock stopped short in the doorway to the flat and stared at John thoughtfully, an estranged warmth growing in his gut that he had not felt for a long time before today.

It had first happened earlier that day, during an interview. There had been a soldier on leave at one of the houses he had visited; the boyfriend of the daughter of the client. Sherlock, of all people, had been surprised when he had taken one look at the young man—standing still and proud, just like John did—and felt the sleepy stirrings of an erection.

What was even more improbable was that it had happened _twice more_ throughout the entirety of the day. Once again before Sherlock left that particular client’s house, and then later in the cab ride to the next case, as flashes of John in uniform burst into his mind spontaneously.

And now…

John was bending over Sherlock’s desk, trying to organize a stack of papers and put them aside. His back was to Sherlock, and all the brunette man could see was John’s round little bottom moving back and forth, and Sherlock could not stand it for another minute.

He must have made a noise in the back of this throat, because John suddenly spun around, caught off guard, but he smiled happily when he saw that it was Sherlock who was standing in the doorway.

“Welcome back. Have a good day?”

_Yes. No_. _Wait, what did John just ask?_

It was getting increasingly harder to think when the brunette man noticed that John was wearing one of Sherlock’s favorite shirts on him. The red plaid button-down that was just so… _John_. And, to Sherlock’s surprise, the top button was undone, uncharacteristic of John, who always went out in military-style dress; all buttons done up and not a wrinkle in sight.

_He must have had a bad day at the surgery_ , Sherlock thought to himself, taking a quick scan of the living room to find—right there: a rather large bag of biscuits sitting next to an almost-empty teacup.

John usually waited until Sherlock was home before making the tea, and he never had biscuits in the middle of the afternoon, since he often took a late lunch from his job.

But Sherlock dismissed all of this information in a second, deeming it unimportant. What was important was the fact that he could see the sharp lines of John’s collarbone through the opened neck of his shirt, and Sherlock had the most insane urge come over him to run his tongue over it.

“John, I seem to find myself rather…erotically charged today.”

For a moment, John stared at him in confusion, a small frown beginning to form in his brow, before he comprehended Sherlock’s words and the frown was replaced with a goofy little smile. “Sherlock, is that your way of saying that you’re horny?” he asked, grinning.

“Yes?” Sherlock responded, not quite sure what he wanted to do about the sudden urges that were coming over him. He had wanted John before—of course he had, he wasn’t _stupid_ (or blind), after all—but never with sort of…all-consuming urgency.

John, bless his heart, merely laughed out loud; a deep laugh full of relief and happiness. “Thank God!” he shouted. “Finally!”

Sherlock didn’t even have to say another word. In an instant, John was closing the distance between the two men quickly, his stride purposeful and deadly.

Sherlock stood in the doorway and waited to be taken.

Xxx

John could barely believe what he had just heard. After weeks—bloody _months_ —of Sherlock not allowing the blonde man to touch him, finally— _FINALLY!_ —John was going to have his chance.

He decided to take it before Sherlock could change his mind.

The doctor was over by the other man in the span of seconds, taking Sherlock in his arms and hugging him tightly, pressing their lips together in what was probably the messiest, most eager kiss the two had ever shared.

But it didn’t seem to matter to either one.

Sherlock responded to John by kissing him eagerly back, opening his mouth so that John could taste him and— _God_ he had forgotten how good Sherlock tasted.

He steered them away from the door, towards their bedroom carefully, shoving the door closed with his foot so that he didn’t have to take his hands away from Sherlock’s body for a second. He couldn’t have, anyways. He was too busy pulling off Sherlock’s clothing in a mess of hands and arms and too much fabric.

When he had divested Sherlock of the man’s shirt, he took a moment to be gentler with his trousers and pants, but soon enough John had the brunette man lying back on top of the covers of their bed, pale and panting and wonderfully naked beneath his hands.

He had always loved how Sherlock looked laid out for him this way. It was so deliciously erotic and John wasted no time in eating up every inch of Sherlock’s body he could get to from that position.

As he kissed Sherlock’s chest, his lips hovered over the other man’s puffy nipples. The muscle underneath was slightly swollen and soft, as the pregnancy produced hormones that were trying to begin making milk, but would not succeed in their job in the body of a man. Sherlock’s belly, which had always dipped down when Sherlock was laying on his back—from what John chastising-ly said was malnourishment—now ever so slightly bowled upwards, just barely standing above the rest of Sherlock’s body as the man lay before John.

The blonde couldn’t help himself; he dropped his head down to place soft kisses along Sherlock’s abdomen, dipping into his belly button and going lower and lower until…

Sherlock gasped and bucked beneath him as John took the other man into his mouth.   The brunette was erect already, and John knew that he didn’t have to spend long on foreplay. He was glad—although he wanted to enjoy this with Sherlock as much as he could, it had been too long since he had taken the man, and he was feeling just as needy as Sherlock.

He took his time licking lazy trails up and down Sherlock’s cock, knowing that soon enough he would have what he had been wanting for months now. There was no need to rush when he was so close to the finish line at last.

His fingers made soft tracks along Sherlock’s hip, pressing at the bone he felt there, and down the insides of his thighs, tickling along Sherlock’s balls before slipping further down, between his soft cheeks and pressing the tip of his finger against the tight ring of muscle he found there.

Beneath him, Sherlock keened.

He prepared Sherlock gently, using plenty of lube from the drawer in their nightstand and being sure not to hurt him. He knew it would take a little getting used to again (it _had_ been months since they had last had sex) but Sherlock didn’t seem to be as worried about it as John was, growling frustratingly at John’s languid movements and urging him on.

But John would not be rushed. He was enjoying being able to see Sherlock this way, laid out before him and practically glowing in his pregnancy and with the sweat of arousal. He couldn’t believe how beautiful Sherlock was. How radiant and soft and—

Sherlock made a noise in the back of his throat, pushing himself up against John’s body, and the doctor lost all ability to put together thoughts. All he could think of suddenly was Sherlock beneath him, Sherlock around him, Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock….

John entered the man without a word of warning, without a second thought. He pushed against the tight ring of muscle until he was completely sheathed in Sherlock’s warmth, panting at the heat of it. He knew he wasn’t going to last long, and Sherlock’s erection between them—red and swollen and leaking precum steadily—told him that the brunette wouldn’t be far behind him. He began to move, a gentle rocking motion that bordered on frantic, but he used what little willpower he had left to reign himself in. He didn’t want to hurt Sherlock.

But he had forgotten just how tight the other man was, how Sherlock’s body seemed to open up just for him, and clench and close around John so perfectly, sending John over the edge, pulling him down into oblivion, making him come and come and come as if he needed everything John had to give him.

When he was done he pulled out of Sherlock quickly, who lay dazedly on the bed, still trying to catch his breath, and he bent to take Sherlock into his mouth again. He felt Sherlock’s body—relaxed for the moment from John’s orgasm—spasm and tighten under him as John sucked him, pulling him over the edge the same way Sherlock pulled him.

There was a grunt above him and he heard his name whispered between heavy breaths, and suddenly Sherlock’s hands were on the back of his head and Sherlock’s hips were bucking up into his mouth and John was taking all that Sherlock was giving him and swallowing every last drop.

They lay, panting, on top of one another for a few minutes, John’s head resting on Sherlock’s thigh and their legs and feet tangling around the sheet at the foot of the bed. When he had seemed to catch his breath enough, Sherlock propped himself up on the pillows, a goofy smile spreading across his face as he looked down at John.

“That…was brilliant,” he told the doctor, still slightly winded. “Ready for another go?”

Xxx

The next few days in Baker Street were testament to the wonders of the second trimester of pregnancy.

Sherlock’s nausea did not come back—thankfully—and his sex drive seemed to have returned with a vengeance—again, thankfully—and John couldn’t remember a time in his life when he had ever been happier.

In fact, he couldn’t be bothered to remember much of anything at all these days, as his boss so politely reminded him one morning at work, when she gave him his flight information for the medical conference he had told her weeks ago he would go on.

He tried to back out of it, but she said it was too short of a notice for her to find anyone else to go along, and she really had her hopes on learning more about the new heart medication that the government had just released.

Resigned and despondent, John told her that he would go.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair hopelessly. He did not relish the thought of telling Sherlock that he was going to have to leave for 3 days.

Xxx

True to form, when John told him about the medical conference, Sherlock pouted and moped and—surprising enough—threw things at John.

John didn’t even know what exactly was so horrible about him going away that it required an evening of the silent treatment and a night on the couch, but he had heard about the terrifying and death-inspiring ‘pregnancy mood swing’ and he decided not to chance making the situation worse, so he took his punishment stoically and tried not to think about spending another 5 months walking on eggshells around Sherlock.

The next day, his partner was in rare form indeed, and John had been glad that it wasn’t a weekend, so he didn’t have to spend the whole day around a moody, self-vindicated Sherlock Holmes. They argued that morning about the jelly—of all ridiculous things—and when John came back after work, he was relieved to find that Sherlock had not returned home yet, and he went about making dinner in peace.

But the troubles from that morning did not want to stop at just jelly. No, they wanted to encompass all pleasant moments in John’s life.

Sherlock came home just as John was setting the plates for dinner, and they ate in relative quiet as the two men tried their best to ignore each other from across the table.

Suddenly, the shrill sound of Sherlock pushing his plate away from himself to signify that he was done cracked apart the silence of the flat. John, his fork halfway to his mouth, glanced at the plate Sherlock had pushed out of his way and noticed a large amount of color still on the plate.

“Sherlock, you should eat the spinach,” he said reprovingly, frowning at the other man. “It’s good for you.”

“No,” Sherlock answered simply.

John’s frown deepened at the childishness of his partner. “You hadn’t been eating well during your first trimester, and you need to make up for it. Now, eat it!”

“I will not!” Sherlock snapped, crossing his arms and glaring at John through sea foam green eyes and furious brows.

“This is ridiculous—you’re a grown man,” John argued, slamming his own silverware down to make a point. “I shouldn’t have to force feed you like you are a child!”

“Then don’t,” Sherlock answered simply.

John sighed, and the sound was not happy. “Sherlock, you can’t live off a diet of cakes and jelly rolls.”

“Why not?” Sherlock asked petulantly. “I thought you would be glad that I’m eating anything at all.”

“I am, but, you need to eat _healthy_ foods,” John debated, throwing his hands up in the air in desperation. “You need the nutrients from fruits and vegetables, and the protein from meats. At the rate you’re going, you’ll probably give birth to a jelly-filled, chocolate baby.”

Sherlock huffed sullenly and John could tell that he was now just being difficult for difficult’s sake. “You would still love him,” he countered.

“I wouldn’t get the chance to love him,” John answered back scathingly. “Not if you _ate_ him.”

It didn’t surprise John at all that his snide comment landed him back on the couch and made him the proud recipient of another infamous Sherlock-silent treatment.

Xxx

“John, I miss your cock so much.”

“Sherlock!”

John’s fingers blindly searched for the volume button on the side of his phone as he pressed the cell closer to his ear, hoping no one in the quiet banquet room around him had heard his pregnant, hormonally horny boyfriend on the other end of the line.

“I wish you were fucking me right now.”

“Where are you?” John asked, his voice cracking as he turned away from the group of doctors that were standing around him, waiting for him to finish his thoughts on the new cholesterol medication that was on the market now. “Are you at home?”

“I’m in bed. Wanking.”

“Oh, God.”

He quickly and bumbling-ly excused himself away from the group of men and hurriedly looked for the exit to the banquet room, exceedingly glad that he was staying in the hotel room where the convention was being held and that his room was only a few floors and doors above his head.

“I want your mouth on me, sucking me off.”

“Sherlock, I—” he had never had phone sex before—never really been attached to anyone long enough to require it—and he didn’t even know where to begin. “If I were there with you…tell me what you would want me to do to you.”

He had made it onto his floor, which was thankfully seemingly deserted, and his shaking hand was fumbling with his blasted room key to no avail as he heard Sherlock’s deep baritone voice begin speaking over the line.

“I would want you to get down on your knees in front of me,” Sherlock told him and finally— _finally!_ —John was able to pull the damned card out of the keyhole with a successful green light and he stumbled into his room, not bothering to turn on any of the lights. His only priority was juggling his cell phone as he fumbled with his belt buckle, tearing it open and tugging desperately at his zip.

“And I would want you to let me fuck your mouth while you touch yourself and I watch you.”

“God, Sherlock,” John breathed, falling backwards onto the hotel bed and grabbing himself roughly. He was already hard, and he didn’t even bother trying to find lubricant—he didn’t want to tear himself away from Sherlock’s voice for one second.

“Put your fingers in your arse,” he said into the phone, his cock twitching in his hand as he pictured Sherlock preparing himself, knuckle deep into his own tight hole. “Stretch yourself wide so that you can take all of me.”

“John—” Sherlock’s voice was ragged sounding on the other end, and John stroked himself furiously to the thought of Sherlock lying on their bed, opening himself up and finger fucking himself.

“I wish I was fucking you right now. I would fuck you so hard you would be begging me to stop.”

“Yes, John. Yes, fuck me.”

And with that softly spoken, slightly broken plea, John fell off of the edge, shooting out all over his hand and the trousers he hadn’t even bothered to take off completely.

Xxx

Sherlock didn’t know how he managed to go 17 weeks without sex with John. Because it had only been 2 days since the blonde doctor had left for his medical conference and Sherlock already felt like he couldn’t function without a John-induced orgasm. Crime scenes and Scotland Yard police officers were feeling the brunt of it, mostly, but it was nothing compared to how high-strung and tense Sherlock was feeling.

He had called John at least 7 or 8 times each day, and at least one—sometimes two—of those times inevitably ended with them wanking off to the sound of each other’s voice over the line. The rest of the time that they spent apart, Sherlock busied himself with sending inappropriate picture messages to the man, much to John’s horror and Sherlock’s increasing entertainment.

But, luckily, the day of John’s homecoming came and Sherlock seemed to be in a particularly euphoric state all day long. He even went so far as to order take away and set it out on the kitchen table to be ready when John walked through their door.

At the sight, the blonde doctor smiled happily, and Sherlock felt his heart flutter.

Before John could even take a moment to sit down and relax, Sherlock was in front of him, grasping him tightly and searching out John’s mouth with his own.

“Hello to you, too,” John said with a chuckle when they parted, slightly out of breath. “Miss me much?” he teased.

Sherlock huffed in annoyance. “You have no idea,” he confessed in a whisper. “You can’t leave again. I don’t think I would be able to function properly.”

“I feel the same,” John said with a smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t leave again.”

“Promise?” Sherlock asked into the corner of John’s mouth.

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

X.X.X

Notes: Next chapter, ‘Perfect’.


	4. Perfect

On top of the original disclaimer for the works of the band Marianas Trench and the pregnancy website, I do believe there is also a line or two from ‘Friends’ in here. I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. Sometimes when I was writing particular scenes all I could think of were episodes where Phoebe or Rachel were pregnant. Huge thanks to my beta Jenamy, and everyone who has taken the time to comment or leave kudos!

ALSO: I was left a wonderful comment by Mathiea and a request for a beta. I do currently need one for the second half of this story and some other one-shots. Unfortunately, I’m new to AO3 and don’t know how to get in touch with you! :( If you’re reading this, shoot me another comment!

X.X.X

It had finally come.

It was here.

The day that Sherlock had been dreading…

The day when nothing in his wardrobe fit him anymore.

He had put off going out to buy new clothes for so long and now here he was…stuck with nothing to wear.

In his defense, it had seemed to happen overnight. Yesterday he had managed to squeeze into his loosest fitting trousers and today…today he felt the hot prickle of tears forming in the corners of his eyes as he pulled vainly at the two ends of fabric in his hands, trying futilely to make them meet over his distended abdomen.

“Sherlock, come on, we’re going to be late—” John stopped in mid-sentence as he walked into their bedroom and saw the brunette man, red-eyed and frowning, tugging at his trousers. “Wha--?”

And suddenly Sherlock let out a great big huff of annoyance, and a profanity he only said in the midst of a passionate round of love-making slipped past his lips.

“They won’t bloody fit!” he yelled out in frustration.

“Okay, it’s okay, calm down,” John said soothingly, in what Sherlock had taken to calling his ‘wounded animal handling’ voice. John had picked up the tone over the past few weeks, when the mood swings had really begun to kick in.

“No, it’s not okay, John!” Sherlock continued, still shouting. “I look like I’ve swallowed a watermelon and I can’t fit my fat arse into any of my clothes! What the bloody hell am I supposed to do, go out in my pajama bottoms?!” He stomped over to his wardrobe and began rifling through it, tossing out anything that would not fit him anymore.

“Too small, too small, haven’t been able to get into that one in weeks….”

“Sherlock,” John chastised, his tone still very, very nonjudgmental. “It’s not that bad—you definitely won’t have to go out in your pajama bottoms, at least. Look, come here.”

The blonde man reached out to him gently, grabbing hold of his shoulder and pulling Sherlock out of the bedroom and into their kitchen where he shuffled through their junk drawer for a moment before emerging with a large, thick rubber band.

“See, we’ll just slip this into here,” John said, putting one end of the rubber band through the button hole in Sherlock’s trousers and passing the other end of the band through the piece that was hanging on the outside, making a hangman’s knot. He then proceeded to stretch the rubber band across Sherlock’s stomach and loop the opposite end around the button of Sherlock’s trousers.

It was not the most eye-appealing of wardrobe fixes—and he most certainly would not be able to tuck his shirt into the waistband of his trousers—but at least his bottoms would stay up.

“After we meet with Lestrade we can go shopping for clothes, and maybe some of the other things that we need. We haven’t really bought anything for the flat yet,” John offered.

When they left their flat, twenty minutes later, Sherlock was in a much better mood than he had been in before.

Xxx

“What the bloody hell’s taken you so long, then?” Lestrade complained as John and Sherlock met up with him and the whole of the Scotland Yard forensics team in the middle of a vacant lot. “Decided to have a quick shag before you left your flat?”

John simply rolled his eyes and ignored the detective inspector—as usual—but, to his surprise, he heard Sherlock’s deep baritone voice answer Lestrade rather dismissively.

“No. I couldn’t find anything to wear that would fit.”

“Sherlock.” John’s tone was low and warning, telling the brunette beside him that he was dangerously close to venturing into a topic that he didn’t think the consulting detective would like. He knew that Sherlock didn’t always understand how certain things that he said effected a conversation and required curious follow-up questions to be asked, and John knew this was one of them.

He was, of course, ignored.

“You know,” Lestrade began, looking over the tall—and no longer slim—consulting detective curiously. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but…you do look like you’ve been gaining a fair bit of weight. I didn’t think John was that good of a cook, judging from the couple of meals he made me while he was staying at my place when you two split—”

“Lestrade!” John’s voice was louder now, but the tone had gone more menacing. He wasn’t liking where any part of this conversation was heading. He could see it all playing out in his head, like a train wreck. Someone was going to end up getting very upset, and he was fairly certain it was going to be himself.

“I’m not getting fat, you idiot,” Sherlock answered a bit too loudly, obviously more than a little irritated by Lestrade’s last comment. “I’m creating a Sherlock Jr. and making the world a better place for doing so.”

“ _Sherlock!_ ” This time John shouted, not caring who heard him. Most of the people around the crime scene had already been inching their way closer, intrigued—as usual—by the running commentary Sherlock always provided at crime scenes.

_Too bad this is more of a personal matter_ , John thought to himself, eyes shutting in horror as everyone around them froze and grew silent almost instantaneously.

After a dreadful moment of silence that didn’t seem to bother Sherlock at all, Lestrade was the first to speak, his tone a bit confused and the look on his face slightly dazed.

“You’re joking, right?”

“Joking?” Sherlock repeated, thrown off by Lestrade’s poor vocabulary. “Why would I make a joke like that? It wasn’t even funny.”

“Really?” a new voice suddenly called out, and John didn’t even bother to hold back the groan that escaped his throat when he turned around and saw Donovan staring at the two of them, Anderson right beside her, as usual.

“This freak of nature, procreating?” she said, pointing at Sherlock with a look of disgust. “Who would be insane enough to let him do that?”

Sherlock gave her a particularly sharp-looking sneer. “Well, unlike you, I don’t have to beg someone to sleep with me—I’m sure there are lots of people out there who wouldn’t mind propagating with me.”

Donovan was just about to retort when someone else interrupted. Lestrade, still looking as though he were slightly in shock.

“John…is it…yours?”

“What do you mean ‘is it John’s’?” Sherlock asked, offended. “Of course it’s John’s! What do you take me for? Some sort of trollop?”

And suddenly, John felt like he couldn’t take one more second of it.

“Okay, that’s it. Everybody, just— _quiet_! Sherlock, you, too! Just…calm down!” he shouted out, startling a number of the group of onlookers who didn’t think John ever lost his composure. How very wrong they were. “I know this is a lot to take in, but let’s just have a minute, yeah?”

Silence settled onto the group as John stared them down, and even Sherlock didn’t make another sound.

“Okay, that’s better,” John said with a relieved sigh after a moment or two of quiet. “This may be difficult to comprehend, but it’s true,” he told everyone around them, angry that it had to come to this in the first place. “Sherlock is…pregnant.” He stumbled over the word because it was still seemed so very foreign to have those three words strung together. “He took the Synathida a little over 5 months ago, and he is 16 weeks along. And, yes, Lestrade,” he turned around to look at all of the other people who were around them, eyes wide and faces vacant and uncomprehending, “and everyone else who’s wondering, because I know you all are—we are having this baby together and we are very bloody happy about it so everyone just needs to piss off!”

No one said anything for a long moment, staring at the blonde doctor in something akin to disbelief.

Finally, another voice broke the silence, awkward but very welcome. “Well, you heard the man,” Lestrade said. “Go on and piss off!”

And with that informal dismissal most of the squad dispersed, going off to gossip in quiet whispers about what had just transpired. When most of the people had left, John looked around to see that only Donovan, Anderson, and Lestrade were still by them.

“Well, I guess that answers the question of who tops, aye boys?” Lestrade said with a small, uncomfortable chuckle. “Pay up, you prats!”

John watched incredulously as Anderson rifled through his trouser pockets and handed a handful of pounds to Donovan, and one of the other blokes who was still relatively close by paid Lestrade.

“Greg!” John said, sounding affronted.

“What?” the detective inspector asked with a small shrug. “I wasn’t about to miss out on some easy cash.”

“What do you mean, ‘easy’?” Sherlock suddenly spoke up, offended.

“Oh, like it could possibly have been the other way around,” Lestrade answered. “Sherlock loves being the center of attention too much to top.”

John cringed at the fact that a very private part of his life was apparently the workplace gossip. He didn’t rightly know how he was ever going to show his face at Scotland Yard again. Perhaps they could move away, far from colleagues and strangers who knew what went on in their bedrooms.

“Maybe you should just fill us in on what we are doing out here, and we can all get back to our jobs,” John finally instructed, tired of dealing with the mess of a situation already.

“Oh, that,” Lestrade answered, raising a hand to scratch the back of his head embarrassedly. “Yeah. Well, we caught a missing person’s case. Teenage girl, history of drug abuse, father recently remarried. We had the dogs after her, but they lost the trail here.” He shuffled through the notes he had taken for the case in his small notepad. “It’s a local hang out for other secondary school kids, so there are lots of footprints and tire tracks. It’s a huge mess; I don’t even know where to have my team begin.”

John nodded his head, glad to have something else to occupy his thoughts, and began to take a look around the scene. It had rained recently, and so there were hundreds of footprints still more or less perfectly preserved in the mud and gunk of the lot. John braced himself for a long afternoon of digging through evidence when Sherlock’s voice cut through the stillness of the air around them.

“Really, Lestrade? You made me get out of the flat for this?” He sounded actually annoyed, and John remembered the fit Sherlock had thrown earlier that day about his wardrobe. No doubt he _was_ annoyed, well and truly.

“What?” the detective inspector asked, looking around him. “It’s a legitimate case for you, Sherlock. Right up your alley.”

“She’s not even missing!” Sherlock argued, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.

“What do you mean ‘she’s not even missing’?” Lestrade repeated, frowning. “How do you know that?”

Sherlock sighed and brought a hand up to his forehead, as if it pained him greatly to be around this much stupid. “You can tell,” he began, voice low and slow—the tone was reminiscent of the kind that parents used to explain adult-things to particularly dense children, “by the history you just gave me of her: teenage girl, upset that her father has recently remarried, goes off to get high and show him what she thinks of her new ‘mum’.” He ticked the marks off on his fingers, holding his hand up in front of Lestrade’s face so that the detective inspector couldn’t miss a beat.

Lestrade pushed Sherlock’s hand away harshly. “But, there was a ransom note,” he countered.

Sherlock did nothing more than roll his eyes in exasperation. “Teenagers have to get the money to score somehow, Lestrade. If they were busy working, like productive members of society, they wouldn’t be shooting their brains up, now would they?”

“I guess not everyone is lucky enough to have a trust fund to dip into to feed their habit, eh, Sherlock?” Donovan came up and asked, her tone poisonous.

Sherlock didn’t rise to her bait. “It’s not my fault that I do everything better than everyone else, Donovan,” he said dismissively. “Don’t be jealous—it’s not a pretty color on you.” He turned back to Lestrade. “Look closer at the note and don’t waste my time next go ‘round, Detective Inspector. It’s terribly inconvenient for me.”

Rolling his eyes, John couldn’t help but interject, “You were sitting at home balancing teacups on your stomach when you got the text.”

“Yes, exactly,” Sherlock responded, beginning to walk back the way he had come, out of the lot. John Lestrade and Donovan followed behind him, trying to keep up with his larger stride. “My day was already filled to the brim with meaningless dribble. But at least that dribble I could do in my pants.”

Lestrade sighed, defeated again. “All right, you heard him, boys,” he called to the rest of the forensics team. “Back to the Yard and have another go at the ransom note.”

Everyone began packing their things up except Donovan, who immediately marched up to Lestrade, hair wild from the wind and eyes wide in disbelief. “Greg, you can’t be serious!” she shouted out. “What if he’s wrong?! You know that the first 36 hours are the most important in kidnappings. We could be wasting valuable time—”

“You’re not,” Sherlock interrupted her dispassionately, still walking away. John began to give his usual goodbye to everyone, an apologetic look and small shrug, as Sherlock blew them all off.

“Wait, Sherlock!” Lestrade called out, running after the tall man. “Why don’t you come back to the Yard with us and have a look at the rest of the files, just in case?”

“Not interested,” Sherlock answered dismissively.

Beside him, John sighed in exasperation. “Come on, Sherlock, we’re already out. What could it hurt?”

Surprisingly, the consulting detective slowed his pace, and gave John a long-suffering look, as if putting up with the doctor’s good will towards humanity was the strangest habit John could have.

“A little girl _is_ missing,” John continued, playing his hand harder now. “You could probably find her faster than anyone else.”

At that, Sherlock stopped walking away. “Yes, I could, couldn’t I?” he said, and John had to hide another roll of his eyes or the jig would be up.

Catching back up to them, Lestrade looked happy that Sherlock was still on the case, and Donovan looked annoyed.

“Tell me something,” the woman asked, crossing her arms and pursing her lips, as if the mere thought of spending any more time with Sherlock was leaving a bad taste in her mouth. “Are you sure the doctors will even be able to deliver something that is half human and half pure evil?”

John knew it was awful, but he couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the corners of his lips.

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Sherlock retorted, not missing a beat. “Someone delivered you all those years ago. Think of the advances in technology that have probably come about in the 40 years since that’s happened.”

“Children,” Lestrade said, his tone warning. “That’s enough. Let’s just get back to the Yard and get this all sorted out, shall we?”

Xxx

The case really did end up being as cut and dry as Sherlock had said it was.

No surprise there.

Just a wasted half of an afternoon, and a particularly difficult-to-deal-with Sherlock.

John was drained from just a few hours of being on a proper case with the consulting detective again. They hadn’t been at it for a while now, what with Sherlock having been so sick the past couple of months. He missed the feeling of solving the case, sure, but he was coming to realize that a pregnant, achy, hungry Sherlock was not an evil that should be released on the world.

Just as they were finally gathering up their stuff to leave, Lestrade came over to John, pulling him away from the other officers. Sherlock was busy having a row with Anderson about the ink that had been used to print the ransom note, and didn’t notice when the detective inspector had snatched John up from right in front of him.

When they were across the room, barely able to hear Sherlock and Anderson shouting expletives at each other, Lestrade turned to John, his brow furrowed and the set of his mouth serious.

“John,” he started, hands making small, nervous gestures as he didn’t know where to put them. “Are you…is this what you really want?”

John frowned back at the detective inspector, unsure of what Greg was asking him for a moment. “Wha—?”

“With Sherlock, I mean,” Lestrade clarified.

“Of course it is, Greg,” John answered without a second thought. The frown didn’t ease, though, it only deepened some more as he tried to figure out what Lestrade was playing at.

“No, but, _really_?” Greg repeated, a little more desperate now. “You had wanted him to do this? To take that pill and get….” He trailed off awkwardly. “It just seems a little…I don’t know, reckless, don’t you think?” he finished.

“Well there really isn’t much we can do about it now,” John answered diplomatically, with a shrug of his shoulders. “What’s gotten into you, Greg? I thought you would be happy for us.”

“I—I am,” the detective inspector said, and John didn’t have to have Sherlock’s deductive reasoning skills to tell that the man was lying. “It’s just, well….”

The man drifted off into silence and John waited patiently for him to continue, until he couldn’t wait anymore. “Well, what?”

“It just seems,” Lestrade began, and his tone was careful and concise, and John knew that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear, “like Sherlock has always…had you wrapped around his finger. You spend every single day working around his whims and his fancies. I’ve never thought it was fair to you, John. I’ve always thought that you deserved better than that.”

John didn’t know what to say. It was strange to have someone be concerned of his emotions—he was so used to Sherlock pushing them aside just like he pushed aside everything else that did not pertain to himself.

Not to say that Sherlock was a horrible person. No, of course not. He loved John and was always, in a Sherlock-kind of way, nice to him. And he—sort of—acquiesced to John every once in a while, so it wasn’t always constantly about the other man.

But other than that, Sherlock did have a special way of always taking the spotlight, and focusing everything—no matter how small or insignificant—on himself. Lestrade was right in a way.

And it was nice to know that someone was on his side.

“Greg, I—”

“I know you love him, John,” the other man said hurriedly, not looking John in the eye anymore. “But you and I are probably the only people who know what he is really like. I just…I just don’t want you to end up getting hurt. You…you don’t deserve that. You’re far too nice and caring.”

John couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but he was getting the funny sensation that Lestrade was meaning more than he was actually saying.

The detective inspector reached a hand out to softly run his fingertips through John’s hair. “You can always talk to me, you know. If you need to.”

Yes, definitely meaning more than he was saying.

Stunned at the other man’s forwardness, John didn’t know what to say. He stood there for a moment, after Lestrade’s hand had dropped back down to his side, and simply stared at the other man. Thankfully he was saved from having to respond by Sherlock’s voice, close to them, calling out, “Ready, John?”

John cleared his throat awkwardly, and threw Lestrade a small, strained smile that he hoped was more comfortable-looking than it felt on his lips, and headed back over to where Sherlock was waiting for him. “Thanks, Greg,” he said as he passed by the man. “I really appreciate that.”

And he was surprised to find that he meant it.

When he reached Sherlock, he was even more surprised when the brunette man reached out to him, running his fingers through his hair just as Lestrade had done not a moment ago.

Sherlock was never really one for public displays of affection, and certainly not in Scotland Yard or Bart’s, where work was work and the consulting detective was very good at severing personal feelings from the job. But, here he was, tousling John’s short hair in front of at least a handful of other detectives and police officers, and letting his long fingers run down the side of John’s face as his large hand fell away.

“Er, yeah,” John managed to squeak out, when he couldn’t stand the awkward silence that had settled on the room anymore. “Ready to go.”

“Good. I believe we have some shopping to do.”

Xxx

There was a shop a couple of blocks over from their flat, _Le Petite Boutique_ , which specialized in upscale baby merchandise. John could tell from the displays in the window that he would never be able to afford even a single burp cloth from a place like that, and he doubted Sherlock would be able to either, judging by all the work that he had missed during his first trimester as he had stayed in bed, shriveling into himself due to the nausea.

But the other man didn’t even pause for a moment outside of the door to the boutique. When he pulled the door open, a bell chimed softly in the back of the store, and as John entered after him the smell of lavender and chamomile washed over him soothingly.

Once inside, he quickly stopped short, as it dawned on him that he had never been into a store like this before. He wandered slowly over to a display rack and noted that he didn’t know what half of the things on the little shelves were.

He tried not to let the panic sink in.

A small bunch of stuffed animals caught his eyes, surrounded by other toys, and he sighed in relief, walking over to an area of the store that he felt much more comfortable in. But when he picked up a small teddy bear and looked at the price tag, the panic came back tenfold.

_Of course Sherlock would want to come to a place like this_ , John thought to himself as he hurriedly placed the teddy bear back on the shelf, afraid that he was going to get charged for even looking at it. Just as he was backing away from the aisle, a woman came up to him, smiling prettily and looking helpful.

“Hello, sir. Welcome to _Le Petite Boutique_ ,” she said happily. John noticed a name tag above her right breast and his eyes trailed appreciatively along the unbuttoned top of her shirt for a moment. “My name is Bridget. Can I help you find anything?”

“No, no. I was just…browsing,” he said politely, smiling at her.

She smiled back rather readily. “Oh, okay. Wanting to pick out a gift for your wife?” she asked casually.

“No. No, I don’t have a wife.”

“Oh, sorry,” she apologized, smile still in place and getting wider. “Girlfriend, then.”

“Nope,” John shook his head. “No girlfriend.”

“Good. I mean…that’s nice.” She laughed nervously and bit her lip coyly. “Are you looking for something for a friend, then?”

“He is looking for something for his partner,” Sherlock’s voice cut through the air between them, making John jump guiltily. “A very testy, pregnant man who is not in the mood to deal with chasing away easy shop girls.”

“Oh, Sherlock,” John said nervously, taking a step away from the shop girl discreetly. “There you are. Thought I had lost you.”

Sherlock ‘hmm’ed in response, eyeing John menacingly.

“Oh, you’re, er,” Bridget said, nervously. And then it clicked. “Oh! _You’re_ pregnant? Well, it’s not very often we get a bloke in here, in your condition.”

“Is that a problem?” Sherlock asked, his tone deadly.

“No!” Bridget exclaimed, a happy smile spreading on her face. “Of course not! _Le Petite Boutique_ is more than happy to help you prepare for your little bundle of joy! What exactly were you looking for? Something specific or…?”

“Everything,” Sherlock answered sharply. “We haven’t got a thing for the flat yet.”

Bridget smiled again, and John noticed that she did it rather easily. “Okay, well, you’ll be wanting to start off with a crib for the nursery. And a changing station. Maybe a nice mobile to hang up.”

And Bridget was off like a dash, pulling Sherlock to every corner of the shop to show him merchandise and tell him about the many things they would be needing for the baby.

John could do nothing but sigh tiredly and follow behind them, cursing ever coming up with the idea to go shopping in the first place.

Xxx

Hours later, they finally managed to claw their way out of the boutique and drag themselves back towards their flat.

Sherlock was worn out, and there was a twinge in his lower back that he could not shake. Shopping had been more of a chore than he had originally thought it would be. There were so many things to consider when buying the things a baby would need—size, safety, quality, color, brand, shape. He had gone over the schematics and measurements and manufacturer histories and safety codes of each piece of furniture that Bridget had shown them, and the decision of which crib to buy had been bordering on life or death.

John had finally snapped and taken the decision out of his hands entirely, choosing for them.

And then Sherlock had, of course, decided to go with another one.

But now, with bags full of menswear from the shop next to the boutique, and the promise of a rush delivery on the crib to their flat—with everything else following a few days later (Sherlock had no need for the other stuff at this point, really)—the two men were finally able to breathe a little easier, knowing that this day was almost over.

It had been harder for Sherlock to adjust to the pregnancy than he had thought it would be. Now that his every waking moment was not being spent curling into a ball in bed or throwing up in the bathroom, he had more time to think about what he had done to himself, and his life.

John seemed happy, for the most part. Of course things like shopping, Sherlock’s constant complaining, and the late-night cravings seemed to be starting to annoy the doctor, but he always took everything in stride. The awful words John had said to him after he had first found out about the pregnancy were nothing more than a memory now, not hinted at or acknowledged after that day.

And, for the most part, Sherlock was happy, as well.

Except….

Sometimes Sherlock felt like he was barely there at all. He felt like the fetus in his abdomen was taking over every aspect of his life—a tiny little tyrant who was never satisfied and who wanted more, always more.

More than Sherlock felt he could give sometimes.

It told him when to eat, when to urinate, when he could sleep, even when he could sit or not. What little solace he was able to find came in the form of sugar-y, jelly filled biscuits that he had to sneak away from John to eat, because the doctor was limiting his intake of sweets and pushing more and more fruits and vegetables on him.

Even now, after their long day at Scotland Yard and their tiring shopping expedition, John was taking them to a vegan restaurant for lunch.

“I don’t want to eat weeds, John.”

“It’s not weeds, Sherlock, and if I could get you to remember to take all of your vitamins, I wouldn’t have to keep shoving vegetables and fruits down your throat.”

He smiled down at John, walking beside him. The doctor was panting slightly, since he was carrying all of Sherlock’s bags and trying to keep up with the brunette’s larger stride. His stomach grumbled hungrily and he had a sudden craving for the kinds of things he knew they would not sell at a vegan restaurant. It was okay, though. He knew John would cave to his cravings after lunch.

As long as Sherlock cleaned off his plate like a good boy.

Xxx

When they arrived back at Baker St, it was to find that _Le Petite Boutique_ had already delivered the crib that Sherlock had put the rush order on. It was sitting just inside the door, by the foot of the stairs.

Sherlock happily sat in his chair in their flat, staring out their door and at the steps, as John struggled to bring the heavy box up the staircase.

“It’s okay, don’t bother helping,” he huffed as he tried to push the box up the last few feet and through the door to their flat.

“I couldn’t possibly, John,” Sherlock said, his tone chipper. “You wouldn’t want me to hurt myself, now would you?”

“Right, of course not,” John groaned, shoving hard at the box from behind and stumbling as it leveled out on the landing and slid easily through the door.

The doctor sighed in relief, standing up straight with a whimper and rubbing at his shoulder, moving the joint up and down to loosen the stiffening muscles.

“Up top, John,” Sherlock sing-songed with a devious smile.

“What?”

“It needs to go up one more.” He pointed to the ceiling, indicating John’s room, and the doctor groaned once more, flipping Sherlock off as the brunette man sat in his comfortable little chair and laughed.

Xxx

It was a mess.

Nothing seemed to go together and he could swear that pieces were missing.

“Why don’t you just look at the directions,” John suggested innocently.

“I don’t _need_ directions!” Sherlock argued loudly. “It should be simple enough; any moron should be able to do it.”

The unsaid _‘Well, then, why can’t you?’_ hung in the air between them.

“Shut up,” Sherlock snapped, bitter.

“I didn’t say anything,” John said with a smug smile.

“You’re thinking. It’s throwing me off.” He tried to jam two pieces of wood together, but the pegs wouldn’t quite fit.

“Yeah,” John said, rummaging through the other parts of the crib that littered the floor. “That’s what’s doing it. My _thinking_.”

Sherlock huffed as he tried to push the screw through what must have been the sidebar of the crib with the flathead screwdriver, but it wouldn’t secure into the edge.

He threw it down in exasperation and hunted through the rest of the crib, in bits and pieces on the floor of John’s room all around him. “This is _ridiculous_!” he shouted out, at his wit’s end. He had been trying to put together this blasted piece of furniture for hours now and had gotten nowhere with it.

He was beginning to feel like an utter failure, an idiot, a complete _maniac_. How had he possibly thought that he could go through with having a baby? He couldn’t even put together a bloody crib set! The box said ‘some assembly required’, not ‘you have to have a fucking degree in rocket science’, and he couldn’t even accomplish that.

Closing his eyes, Sherlock took a deep, calming breath.

Panicking would get him nowhere, he knew. He heard John on the other side of the room, working on a different part of the crib, oblivious to Sherlock’s small, sudden anxiety attack.

The brunette man let out a last, desperate sigh and placed his hand carefully over his swollen stomach, trying to feel what lay underneath his fingers through the layers of clothing, skin and organs. _I just wish you could have seen me when it all used to come so easy,_ he thought to the fetus. At this rate, his child was going to be born thinking he was some sort of bumbling buffoon who couldn’t even put two planks of wood together to make a basic structure.

Across the room, John tried to hammer one of the bars into the other with a thicker piece of wood, but only managed to crush his finger between them in the process, dropping all the pieces with a loud clatter and a curse.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. God help the two of them when the baby actually came. They wouldn’t even know which end was up.

“What’s all the ruckus about, boys?” they heard from the stairway up to John’s room. Mrs. Hudson soon appeared, climbing the steps in a rush and frowning. “Not putting anymore holes in my walls, I hope. You still owe me from the last set you made.”

“No, Mrs. Hudson, no holes this time,” John answered her, looking around the room at the mess the two of them had made. “We’re just…doing a bit of rearranging in my old bedroom, that’s all.”

“Rearranging?” the landlady asked, interested now that she knew they weren’t damaging anything that belonged to her. She carefully stepped over the planks of wood and screws on the floor and looked towards the box that the mess had come from. “What for, then?”

“Well,” John said, and Sherlock stared at him out of the corner of his eye, noting that a red tint was growing on the tips of John’s ears and the centers of his cheeks. He looked charmingly nervous and Sherlock lost himself for a moment in the sheer wonder of the scene playing out before him: the man he loved was telling the woman who had been like a mother to him that they were going to have a baby together.

He had not anticipated the level of emotion that was being brought about by this simple fact. He had not felt this way when he had told Lestrade earlier that day. That had been more clinical and practical—like what he imagined pregnant women felt like when they told their bosses. But this….

This was something…more sentimental.

_Interesting_ , he thought to himself. _Another note to make in my data._

“Ah, well, see…” John was stuttering now, and Sherlock didn’t think there had ever been a cuter sight.

“We’ve gone and made you a grandmother, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock interjected, deciding to save John from the situation, much as he didn’t want to.

But the grateful look John sent his way and the tear-filled shriek that flew from Mrs. Hudson’s mouth was more than enough to make up for it.

She grabbed at the two men; standing on the tips of her toes and reaching up to hook both arms around each of their necks. “Oh, dearies! I knew you would end up with a family of your own one day!” she said happily, giving each of them a kiss on their cheeks. “I knew it the moment John moved in with you, Sherlock. You both said you were just flatmates, but I knew better!” She released them with a laugh, her eyes shiny with tears as she took a step back and looked at them. “Parents, can you believe it?” she said to no one in particular.

Sherlock gave a small chuckle and continued to dig bits of furniture out of the box.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be a Nana,” Mrs. Hudson continued, milling about the room now and no doubt coming up with her own ideas for the nursery. “But, really, Sherlock, a child out of wedlock? What will the neighbors say? You’re always so indecent,” she teased, smiling at the two men who were both grinning like idiots.

It felt nice—normal—to have this sort of reaction to the news. There weren’t many people Sherlock wanted to personally tell, but Mrs. Hudson more than made up for the way Scotland Yard had handled the information.

“Well, I suppose you’re wanting to be left alone, you two,” Mrs. Hudson said, after a moment. “It’s a special time for parents, setting up the nursery; I’ll leave you to it.” She walked to the bedroom door but turned around before she exited, giving them both a stern look. “But don’t think I’ll be babysitting every weekend or up at all hours of the night with the wee one. I’m your landlady, after all, not your housekeeper.”

“Of course, Mrs. Hudson,” they both said in unison, and said landlady gave them a smile and blew them a kiss before turning around and leaving them alone.

Xxx

The dreams began that night. With the pregnancy fatigue abating and his abdomen growing more and more each day, Sherlock was beginning to wake up several times during the night to deal with heartburn, leg cramps, backaches or the urgent need to urinate. He knew that waking during an REM cycle made one more likely to remember their dreams, and he almost wished that it didn’t. He had never put much thought into his dreams when they lingered in bits and pieces after he had woken, but the pregnancy was beginning to take over his subconscious mind much the same as it was his waking life.

Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that they had told everyone about the news today. Or maybe it was the fact that they had spent an exorbitant amount of money on clothing and furniture and toys and now this was feeling far more real than it ever had in the past.

Whatever the reason, Sherlock’s subconscious was having a field day, and he wasn’t liking it one bit.

He woke during the middle of the night, needing to use the loo, and the dream that he had been having kept replaying itself over and over in his head. When he stumbled back into the bed after he had washed up, he couldn’t go back to sleep for thinking about it. He tossed and turned until he eventually woke John up, who grumbled sleepily about Sherlock stealing all of the covers.

“John? John, are you up?”

“No.”

“Yes you are.”

“I’m really not.”

“Then why are you talking to me?”

The doctor sighed in the dark beside him and he felt John roll over onto his back. “What is it, then? Wanting a bowl of pistachio ice cream? I don’t think there’s any left from last night. And if you think there’s any way I’m getting out of bed and going down to the store at this time of night, you’re daft.”

“No, John, it’s not that,” he snapped annoyed, and slightly hurt that—if it _had_ been that—he would have had to go without. “I just…”

“What?” John pushed, his disconnected voice drifting through the darkness between them.

“I had a dream,” Sherlock finally answered.

“Oh.” John sounded almost relieved that that was all. “Oh,” he repeated. “What about?”

It was so ridiculous that Sherlock didn’t even want to say it out loud. But, silly as it had been, he couldn’t seem to dismiss it. And he _wanted_ to tell John about it, as if talking about it might make it easier to understand.

“Well,” he began, slightly uncomfortable. “I had…given birth…” he said slowly, and then stopped.

“That’s nice,” John said, when Sherlock didn’t continue for a moment. “What did the baby look like, then? All slimy and alien-like? You know that’s what they look like when they first come out. It shouldn’t bother you too much.”

“No,” Sherlock said into the dark. “It was…a porcupine,” he finally admitted, his voice shaking slightly against his will, and he was glad that John could not see him. “I gave birth to a porcupine.”

Next to him, John was silent for a moment. “A porcupine?” he finally asked, incredulously. There was something in the tone of his voice, too, something that Sherlock thought sounded suspiciously like….

Before he had even finished his thought John burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny, John!” Sherlock yelled out, moving to hit at the man beside him but missing in the dark. “I was covered in blood and quills and then, when the nurses handed it to me, it tried to bite me!”

John howled even louder.

“John, it was a bloody porcupine! What if…what if it comes true? What if I end up giving birth to some sort of…mutant or something? I mean, there’s no telling what sort of side effects the Synathida has on the fetus, or what my immune system will do to it to ensure that the baby doesn’t harm my body! I could be carrying around some sort of transmuted human or a—”

“A porcupine?” John cut him off, unable to control the giggles that still slipped past his throat.

“John, I’m being completely seri—”

“Sherlock, calm down,” John interrupted, exasperated. If Sherlock could see him, he was sure that the doctor would be rolling his eyes at him. “It was just a dream, that’s all. Lots of pregnant women say that they have all sorts of barmy dreams before they give birth. It’s just your mind’s way of dealing with all the emotions you’re having.”

“But, I—”

“Sherlock, you’re panicking. You’re just scared that we’ve told everyone now and that this is suddenly becoming very, very real. It’s perfectly normal.”

He was surprised that John, for once, was the one who was reading Sherlock like a book, and hitting every point soundly on the nose.

Through the blackness of the bedroom, he felt John’s arms wrap around him gently, hugging him close to the doctor’s warm body.

“You don’t have to be scared, Sherlock,” John whispered into the crook of Sherlock’s neck, and his warm breath sent shivers down the brunette’s spine, stirring his groin. “I’m sure our baby will be born perfectly healthy and utterly adorable. How could it not, with you as its father?”

He leaned over and kissed Sherlock then, deeply, and Sherlock felt John’s hands drifting down to his lower abdomen, caressing him softly.

John’s lips followed his hands, drifting lower and lower, and placing small, wet kisses along all the skin he exposed as he made a trail downwards, pulling down Sherlock’s pajama bottoms.   “It will be strong,” he kissed Sherlock’s chest, “and healthy,” he kissed Sherlock’s distended belly, “and smart,” he kissed Sherlock’s hip bone, “and a complete handful—just like you.” He took Sherlock’s length into his hot mouth, swirling his tongue around the tip wetly. “Perfect,” he finished, releasing Sherlock’s cock.

“John,” Sherlock choked out, his body suddenly on fire from the other man’s touches. He had to have more, he had to have John, had to be filled…

“I want you.”

John let out a moan, and Sherlock felt him pulling down his own pajama bottoms in the darkness of the room. When he was done, he took Sherlock’s off the rest of the way as well, attacking the man’s cock once more, and Sherlock had to stifle a gasp as John’s mouth worked on him.

He had become so sensitive ever since he had gotten over the morning sickness. Every lick, every nip, every touch, every breath…he felt it all. It drove him wild. He couldn’t believe how much better sex with John felt while he was pregnant, like the world stopped rotating and the universe stopped spinning and all he could feel was John’s fingers entering him, stretching him, pulling him apart and putting him back together again.

“On your knees,” John told him, voice harsh with arousal, and Sherlock could do nothing but comply, didn’t want to do anything else, never wanted to do anything but what John told him to do. He would give John anything he wanted, as long as he rewarded Sherlock, gave Sherlock what he so desperately wanted, needed, ached for…

He wasn’t as flexible as he used to be, but John didn’t seem to mind at all. The doctor’s indulgent hands were on his hips and thighs, helping him move into the position John wanted him in, and when Sherlock was there, arms trembling as they held himself up on the soft mattress of the bed, he gasped in pleasure when he felt John’s tongue on his tight ring of muscle, pushing against the small bud wetly.

“John,” he breathed, face falling into the pillows, and only then did he let loose a sob of want. “Please. I need it.”

“You’ll get it, love,” John whispered, and Sherlock felt the words against his perineum in a hot puff of breath.

His lungs pulled in large quantities of air, but he couldn’t seem to breathe properly. He was gasping, and his hands were shaking as they tightened around the sheets, and suddenly he felt the very tip of John’s cock at his entrance, and he couldn’t take it any longer.

He pushed back onto John, impaling himself with a sigh and pulling a deep groan from the man behind him.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.” This was what he needed. John’s skin was burning up behind him, he could feel it on the backs of his thighs and on his arse and on his hips where the doctor was holding onto him tightly.

So hot.

John rocked into him, and Sherlock groaned. He had always loved being taken in this position—on his hands and knees, legs wide apart so that he could swallow more of John—and it felt even more amazing than he remembered it being. John was hitting his prostate with each thrust, and Sherlock was crying out, and John was mumbling nonsense behind him, falling forward so that his chest covered Sherlock’s back, ramming into him harder and harder and harder until….

Sherlock came without even touching himself, from the feel of John alone. His arms gave out beneath him and his chest fell onto the bed, his swollen stomach rubbing against the mattress as John continued to pound into him. He could feel the slick liquid of his own semen rubbing into his skin from the sheets as he was fucked, and he could do nothing more than lay there, boneless from his orgasm and letting John use his body however the other saw fit.

“Fuck, Sherlock,” John gasped behind him. “You feel so good. You’re going to make me cum.”

And in his post-orgasmic daze, Sherlock could feel John’s thrusts getting harder, feel John’s fingers tighten on his hips until it almost hurt, feel John’s breath catch as he climaxed inside of Sherlock, making a mess out of him.

“There’s no way that could ever make a porcupine,” John huffed, his breathing irregular as he pulled out of Sherlock and fell back onto his side of the bed.

Sherlock took a moment to revel in the feel of John’s orgasm seeping out of his loosened hole. He had always loved how John opened him up. “No,” he agreed, his voice muffled by the pillow that his face was still pressed into. “Not at all.”

Xxx

The next morning, John got up and went about making breakfast, letting Sherlock sleep in. He knew that the man hadn’t gotten much sleep last night—he had woken up slightly when Sherlock had first gotten up to use the bathroom, and had felt Sherlock tossing and turning before he had completely woken the doctor up—and he didn’t particularly want to deal with a crabby Sherlock all day long.

Especially not when Lestrade had called earlier and said that there was a case waiting for them to take a look at.

Yesterday had been hell enough.

When Sherlock finally shuffled out of bed and into the kitchen, John was happy to note that breakfast was just finishing up. He made Sherlock a heaping plate and gave himself a smaller portion.

“Hurry and eat,” he told the bleary-eyed man, placing a kiss on the crown of Sherlock’s head as he passed by him on his way to his own seat. “Lestrade’s called us in on another case. It sounded promising.”

“ ‘Promising’ like yesterday was ‘promising’?” Sherlock asked, scathingly.

John sighed, chewing on his eggs distractedly before answering. “No, Lestrade swore that this one was better.”

“Good,” Sherlock said shortly, and proceeded to dig into his breakfast with a vigor that John still found entertaining.

They ate in silence for the rest of the meal, and when they were done Sherlock happily went about getting showered and dressed in one of the outfits he had bought yesterday. Though he would never admit it, John knew how good the brunette felt about finally having clothes that fit him properly again. And, since Sherlock had always been on the thin side, he had been able to get away with simply buying larger-sized dress shirts and slacks, not having to bother with the hassle of getting an entire wardrobe completely tailored and customized specifically for these next few months.

“Come on, John,” Sherlock called, some minutes later, as John was finishing washing up. “We don’t want to be late again like yesterday.”

The doctor walked out of the bathroom and towards Sherlock, already standing out on the landing, pulling his coat on as he went. “Yeah, okay,” he said, fixing his collar. He started down the stairs before Sherlock and headed to the front door. “But let’s walk a bit before we get a cab. I think the exercise will do you some good—”

His words were cut off as he opened the door and was immediately bombarded with the flash of dozens of cameras and the loud din of people suddenly shouting out, trying to be heard over each other.

“Mr. Holmes!”

“Mr. Holmes!!!”

“Is it true that you are pregnant?”

“How far along are you?”

“Where did you get the Synathida?”

“Is John Watson the father of your baby?”

“Show us your bump!”

The two men stood, stunned, on their front step for a few seconds as questions and flashes bombarded them. It was not something new—being jumped by the media this way—but this was certainly unexpected. John, standing in front of Sherlock, unconsciously moved his body so that he stood in the way of the other man’s abdomen. He turned so that he faced the consulting detective and put his arms up to keep the reporters from pushing in closer to the two of them.

“Turn around and get back in the flat.”

“But the case—” Sherlock said, disappointedly.

“Sherlock, we aren’t going to be able to sneak away from this without a car waiting,” John retorted, pushing against the brunette to try to get him back in the flat. “Get back inside and call a cab. We can leave as soon as it gets here.”

Sherlock finally acquiesced and turned around to open the door again, and John ushered him through hurriedly, shutting the door forcefully behind himself and turning the latch. Just in case.

Mrs. Hudson, hearing the racket outside through the open door, took that moment to walk down the hallway. “What’s going on out there, boys?” she asked, frowning.

“I have a feeling, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock said, a look of contempt and frustration marring deep frown-lines on his face, “that we are going to be on the news tonight.”

Xxx

“How did they find out?” Lestrade asked them when they finally arrived at Scotland Yard, sometime later, and told the man about the delay. They had ended up having to call the detective inspector to send a squad car to pick them up and an officer to escort them out of their flat, after their cab had been blocked off by a thick, impregnable wall of paparazzi.

John sighed tiredly. He had not been expecting this today. He had become jumpy and on-edge ever since he had opened their front door and found all those reporters out there. He didn’t even want to think about how they could have found out about Sherlock.

“Well,” he said carefully, “you have gotten…bigger, Sherlock. You don’t look like your just fat, now. You look…pregnant.”

From behind them, they heard a voice intervene.

“ _I_ think he looks fat.”

“Shut up, Anderson!” John scowled at the man. He was not in the mood for the antics today. Not now, anyways.

“Let’s just…get on with the case,” the doctor said wearily, running a hand through his short hair once again.

“Yeah,” Lestrade agreed, not liking this conversation any more than John was, it seemed. “Right, well, I’ll just fill you in on what you’ve missed, then.”

Xxx

The rest of the day was spent in blissful ignorance of the rest of the outside world. For John and Sherlock, the only thing that existed to them at that moment was the morgue at St. Bart’s, and the experiments that Sherlock was conducting on the exhumed body of a certain deceased drug dealer along with the smaller tests John was running to help him.

It felt good to be able to get his mind off of the mess of the situation and John knew that Sherlock was just as distracted as he was.

Even more so, maybe.

It did worry John, as the doctor watched Sherlock work around chemicals that the brunette man didn’t think twice about handling (John had had to go about checking everything to make sure it was safe for Sherlock to be around as the consulting detective told him off for being in his way), that Sherlock could delve so deep into his work that he forgot for a moment about everything else in his life.

Would he do the same when the baby was born? They hadn’t had any cases that involved them running around London, or being chased after by hitmen—thankfully—but it wouldn’t be long now before one of those cropped up. And if John couldn’t even get Sherlock to sit back and let him or Molly bash in the skull of a cadaver to see the shatter pattern at this early stage of the pregnancy, what did that foretell about the other 4 and a half months, when Sherlock would be near to bursting with child?

The sharp beep of one of the medical machines going off across the room jolted him out of his thoughts. He shook his head, as if to dispel the cobwebs of worries and decided not to get caught up in things that hadn’t even happened yet.

They would cross those bridges when they came to them.

Sherlock, opening the lid of the machine and taking out the vial of blood, held it up to the light and stared at it, a happy smile splitting his face.

“Oh, yes. Perfect,” he said to no one in particular.

“Good news, then?” John asked companionably.

“The best,” Sherlock said, moving swiftly to gather up the papers that he had left by his microscope. “May have just solved the whole case.”

“Good,” John said, stretching in his stiff seat with a groan. “I’m getting a bit peckish.”

Sherlock hadn’t heard him, though. He had taken off already, with nothing but the swish and flurry of his long overcoat to signify his leaving.

Xxx

Later that night he was lying in bed next to Sherlock, glad to be finally done with the day.

At least, he would be if Sherlock could stop fidgeting.

“I shouldn’t have eaten that spicy chicken fillet,” he grumbled, turning over onto his side for the hundredth time that night.

“I told you not to,” John said dismissively, not even bothering to take his eyes away from the book he was reading as he sat up in bed next to Sherlock.

“But it was _so good_ ,” Sherlock groaned, flipping on his back with a thrash of legs and arms. “And I couldn’t refuse it. God, what was I thinking…I don’t even _like_ chicken!”

“Well then why did you eat it?” John asked with a sigh, trying to focus his attention on the words in front of him but failing miserably as Sherlock continued to flail about next to him.

“Because!” the brunette grumbled, kicking the sheets off of himself. “I don’t know! This thing,” he pointed angrily at his belly, “made me do it! I wanted the turkey sandwich but _nooo_. I got one whiff of that bloody chicken and this hellion inside of me went crazy.”

John gave him a disapproving glance and roll of his eyes. “Sherlock, you know eating spicy foods that late in the day gives you heartburn at night. You should have just ignored your craving and gone with the turkey.” He re-read the same sentence for the sixth time and still didn’t take in a word of it.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Sherlock snapped. “ ‘Ignore your cravings’ my arse! I’d like to see you ignore a piece of food when everything in your body is telling you to just bloody eat it! My God,” he said, his voice suddenly going small and dismal. “I’ve become like some sort of wild animal, like one of those bears in the campgrounds who steals picnic baskets and eats everything inside including the plastic-ware.”

“You’ve not become a bear, Sherlock,” John said in exasperation, finally giving up on the book altogether and setting it in his lap, cover down. “And I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard to just say no to the spicy chicken next time.”

“I won’t be able to, John. The baby—it needs the spicy chicken.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” he snapped. “Just. Don’t. Order. It.”

Sherlock groaned and clutched at his chest, sitting up suddenly with a wince. “It’s killing me, John. Everything it wants—everything it needs— it’s killing me.”

“It’s not _killing_ you, Sherlock. It’s just a bit of heartburn.” He tried to keep his voice level, because he knew that Sherlock was indeed in (at least a bit of) pain, but it was hard for the doctor. He didn’t think he succeeded.

“It is, John!”

Fed up now with the production, John answered Sherlock sharply, not even bothering to try to be gentle any longer. “You said that you were dying all throughout your first trimester—hell, you even said that you were dying when you were vomiting up your guts from the Synathida. And every time you get a cramp in your legs or a twinge in your back you say that you’re dying. Well, guess what: _you’re not_ ,” he said harshly, enunciating the words so that maybe they would sink into Sherlock’s thick skull a little better. “You are perfectly fine. Every woman goes through the exact same things that you are going through, and they all live. So save the drama, Sherlock—I’ve had quite enough for today.”

And he went back to reading his book in a forceful silence, pointedly ignoring Sherlock now.

After a moment of injured silence, Sherlock’s deep baritone voice cut through the stillness. “You sure are rowdy tonight. What’s crawled up your arse?”

“Nothing, Sherlock,” John sighed. “I just want to read my book. Why won’t you let me have even that much happiness?”

“What’s so great a read, then?” He reached out for the book and John quickly tried to pull it away, but Sherlock was surprisingly quick for a dying, pregnant man.

“ ‘What to expect when you’re expecting’?” the brunette read incredulously.

John reddened a bit around the ears and grabbed his book back, though Sherlock didn’t put up much of a fight to keep it away from him. “I thought it might be useful to know a few things when the baby arrives,” he mumbled embarrassedly.

“Oh, John,” Sherlock said with a small smile. “How utterly paternal of you.”

Xxx

The next few days in 221b Baker Street were quite hectic. News stories had been printed in all of the major—and even the minor—newspapers and pictures of he and John outside their flat were splashed across every front page that he saw.

Incidentally coinciding with the pictures and subsequent articles came the constant, incessant ring of his cell phone.

The emails, too, came flooding in from John’s blog, none—frustratingly enough—having to do with a single case, and even John’s cell phone went off a few times, as Sherlock had listed him as his ‘in case of emergency’ at the doctor’s office and different medical specialists kept sneaking into his file and calling any number they could get a hold of, trying to set up appointments for diagnostic exams and interviews. A few even left messages asking if they could publish papers on Sherlock’s Synathida case in some of the medical journals both he and John were so fond of reading.

He found it a little overwhelming, suddenly being the center of so much attention for such a thing. He was used to being in the spotlight for his mental prowess, for his crime-solving abilities, and for his head-spinning deductions of the human nature, but this…somehow this made him feel almost…dirty.

This wasn’t about his mental abilities or his career achievements. This was about body, plain and simple. This was about the fact that he was—for lack of a better term—a _freak_. A medical marvel. A scientific quandary.

Not that he had ever minded either of those things. No, just the opposite, in fact. He loved a good story about a breakthrough in the field of science or medicine, or a good riddle about a new problem that had cropped up and stumped all of the experts.

But that was not what all the phone calls and emails and messages were about.

_He_ had become the medical marvel now. Between one breath and the next, in the span of a handful of pills, he had made himself Britain’s greatest science experiment, a lab rat that was being watched and written about and tested on.

He tried to shake off the feeling of discomfort that had settled on his shoulders, but he couldn’t seem to. He worried about what all of this meant for the future of his pregnancy, and after. He still had a little over 4 months to go, and this situation was putting him at a loss as to how to deal with it.

He wanted to do what was best for his and John’s child, but he didn’t know exactly what that was, and even John didn’t know quite how to answer that particular question. The only thing Sherlock knew was that he was not equipped to handle such a strange and delicate situation.

If he wanted to never disappoint his child, then somebody was going to have to tell him what to do, because he was at a loss.

He was trying, though. He was trying to be everything that this baby needed him to be. He answered all the questions, he gave all the fluids, he undressed and opened himself up for the doctors in every possible way he could. He tried to brush off the feeling that he was being drained—by the baby, by John, by everyone else around him—by telling himself that he had done far more humiliating and self-deprecating things for far less, in the past.

Because he was damned if he was not going to try his best to make everything perfect for his baby.

And when all of the doctors and all of the specialists and all of the news reporters and all of the strangers on the street wanted to meet him, shake his hand, give him congratulations and smiles and words of thanks, he just felt like he was doing nothing but selling his body to science by the pound. He had not been aware that when he had swallowed that very first pill of Synathida, he was basically signing his name on their dotted line and preparing to give his dignity away to them.

But he did it. He bit his tongue, and held his breath and let everything wash over him.

As his belly continued to grow in the following days, he found himself reaching out to place a hand on it more and more. It helped to ground him when the phone calls became too much, or the reporters chased him down outside of his flat or another article was printed off.

When it all seemed to be crashing down on top of him, he would take a moment to breath, and lay his long fingers across his swollen belly, and smile softly.

_I promise that I’ll make it perfect for you,_ he would tell the baby silently, with the brush of a fingertip.

He was too far gone to care that he was being pulled apart by everything going on in his life. All he cared about was what was growing inside of him, getting bigger with each passing day, becoming more and more _real_.

And he knew that he had utterly lost himself to it, and that it was good in a very bad way.

X.X.X

A/N: Next chapter, ‘Celebrity Status’.


	5. Celebrity Status

A/N: Another big thanks to my beta Jenamy for taking the time to beta these monstrosities called chapters! I really appreciate all the kudos and comments! A big thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this, and wait around for my chapters. I know my posting schedule is all over the place...

Warning for this chapter: Slight John/Lestrade action. Sorry, but it’s needed to create tension! Believe me, if I didn’t have to do it, I wouldn’t!

Disclaimer: Another line from ‘Friends’ snuck in here, I think.

Xxx

At his 20th week, Sherlock was beginning to feel rather frustrated with the whole ‘pregnancy’ thing, and a bit tired of it all. Halfway through his term and weighing more than he ever had in his whole life, his back was hurting almost incessantly and the cramps in his legs and swelling in his feet didn’t help matters at all. At this point, John was taking great joy in telling him that his appendix was stretched to about the size of a cantaloupe, if the women’s uterus was anything to go by, and Sherlock felt so tight and stretched that he couldn’t be bothered to argue with his live-in doctor. John was also quick to remind him that the hormones raging through his body were loosening all of his joints, muscles and ligaments in preparation for his expanding insides, and that with the growing fetus would come a severe shift in his body’s center of gravity that would make him a touch less elegant and graceful than he usually liked to be.

It was all a little much for him to deal with sometimes, and most mornings he spent half of his time getting ready simply staring at himself in his full length mirror, shirt only half buttoned so that the two pieces of material fell away on either side of his rounded belly, staring at the paper-thin flesh with a mixture of intense curiosity and slight abhorrence.

He hated what this thing was doing to him—physically, mentally—yet it intrigued him. Something so small, so seemingly inconsequential, and it was turning his life upside down.

For the past few weeks—ever since he had started getting bigger—every morning always started the same. He would measure the ever-growing width of his waist, the length from the bottom of his sternum to the top of his pubic bone, and the amount of weight that he gained from one day to the next. All the measurements would be meticulously written down in his notebook, along with each cramp, each craving, each pinched nerve. Nothing was left out of the data, not even sexual desires that came in crashing waves at the most random moments. Everything was jotted down—much to John’s mortification—and at only 5 months into Sherlock’s pregnancy, he had already filled up two composition notebooks and was working on his third.

He kept those notebooks in the small fireproof safe that John had bought for their important documents and his few guns, and which Sherlock had recently commandeered to use for the data’s safe keeping. The whole reason he had taken the Synathida, after all, was for the research. And the more he declined the requests for interviews and examinations by other doctors or scientists that had been coming in floods the past week, the more important his data became.

It had only been 6 days since the news reporters had shown up on the front stoop of Baker St, and though there had been a mad dash to be the first to break the case, Sherlock was pleased that his prediction to John the other day had come true.

No news reporter worth his salt would want to publish a story—especially such a juicy one—with only a few small facts, and, since he and John certainly weren’t confirming, denying, or granting interviews with anyone, aside from a small handful of medical specialists, there was no hard evidence to keep the story going.

For once in their lives—and their line of work—both Sherlock and John were extremely glad for doctor-patient confidentiality. It couldn’t last much longer, they knew, but at least for the moment the only people they had to put up with were the incessant specialists, scientists and a few of the more radical citizens who were active in the Synathida campaigns, whether for it or against it.

John’s voice suddenly cut through the silence of the flat, coming from the direction of the kitchen.

“Sherlock, ready to go? We don’t want to be late for this one.”

Sherlock smiled to himself and quickly jotted down the last few measurements. Surprisingly, he was excited about today’s prenatal checkup—something which was unusual.

But today’s was special. Because, in a few hours, he would hopefully have one more piece of vital information to put into his notebooks.

Today, they would find out the sex of the fetus.

Xxx

It was tricky finding a way into Dr. Greenwhich’s office without being noticed. Thankfully, there was not a protest mob out today. It seemed that over the past few months, the anti-Synaths had begun to focus their efforts more on one major event at a time, instead of dispersing widely and constantly organizing a rally every few random days or so. It also helped that, as time went by and the world didn’t burn like the proverbial Sodom and Gomorra, the rallies seemed to be getting smaller, less intense, and less frequent.

But neither he nor John wanted to push their luck that much. The longer they could keep a confirmation of Sherlock’s condition out of the papers, the better off they would all be.

And Sherlock knew that all radical groups like the anti-Synaths never truly left a stake-out spot unattended, no matter how long it had been since the last protest they had made there.

So that was why he didn’t think it unnecessary at all to go through the trouble of finding a way into the building from the delivery entrances in the back, like John seemed to think it was.

“We’re sneaking in like criminals,” the doctor complained, as Sherlock checked the loading docks over quickly to make sure their way was clear. It was empty at the moment, not even a late load being delivered. The two made their way hastily towards the back door, and slipped through it, meeting surprised nurses and physician’s assistants in the back corridors of the medical office as they made their way back towards the front room to check in.

They didn’t make it though, as Dr. Greenwhich turned a corner and spotted them, waving them down jovially.

“Ah, Mr. Holmes!” he called out happily to them. “I was getting a little worried; you aren’t usually late to your appointments. And I see you’ve brought Dr. Watson with you, how wonderful!” He turned his bright, friendly smile on John and the shorter blonde man couldn’t do anything in the face of that grin but smile back. “Big checkup today, isn’t it? Are you both excited?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, tired of the small talk already. That was one thing he hated about having John go places with him. The small doctor tended to make Sherlock seem more ‘personable’, as Lestrade had so eloquently put it one day at a press conference after he had told Sherlock not to go anywhere without John right by his side. And it would seem it proved itself to be true, as people always seemed to want to stay and chat more with him whenever John was by his side. Like an exotic animal at the zoo whose handler was right beside him, ready to pull on his leash in case he lunged.

Too bad he wasn’t much in the mood for chatting, at the moment.

“I daresay we’d enjoy it just a tad more if we didn’t have to sneak around town like children playing hooky from school,” he stated rather scathingly to the plump old doctor, and got an elbow shoved none too carefully into his back by John for his rudeness.

The physician didn’t seem to notice the couple’s silent quibble, though. Dr. Greenwhich only lost the corners of his smile and turned away from them in a rather embarrassed sort of manner.

“Yes, I know what you must be going through,” he said sadly, bringing a hand up to wipe at his bald head distractedly. “I’ve had to take your file out from the main office and carry it around in my briefcase, so no one else can get a hold of it. I’m sorry to say that I was a little slow to do it at first, and I had a receptionist or two who didn’t mind playing fast and loose with my patient’s private information.” He winced as he remembered something, and Sherlock could only assume it was at the memory of the conversation he must have had with his staff. Dr. Greenwhich didn’t seem the type of boss to be overly harsh with his employees, if the first name status he had with all of staff was any indication. “Everyone has been dealt with, but not before a few phone numbers had been leaked,” he continued. “I apologize for that profusely. I know what the unneeded stress must be doing to you.”

“I’ve hardly seemed to notice it at all,” Sherlock replied snidely with an arrogant and exaggerated flip of his hand.

Dr. Greenwhich didn’t seem to be one to catch sarcasm though, because he only smiled widely again, as if happy to hear that Sherlock hadn’t been inconvenienced by the ordeal after all. “Good, that’s good. I’m glad to hear that your delicate condition hasn’t been affected by all the nonsense.” He gave the consulting detective an appraising, medical-based look up and down, and nodded happily. “It looks like you’ve started eating rather well. Sight bigger than you were last time I saw you.”

And before Sherlock could anticipate what the other man was doing, Dr. Greenwhich was reaching a hand out to playfully pat Sherlock’s ever-growing baby bump, not aware of the murderous look that was building on Sherlock’s brow.

Thankfully, John intervened before Sherlock killed the man. There had been a slight pause between the time that Dr. Greenwhich reached out to Sherlock’s belly, and the moment when Sherlock lost all sense of the propriety and decorum that John had practically beat into him over the years, and John used that split second to step in between the men, pushing aside Dr. Greenwhich’s hand with his own in a polite, inconspicuous kind of way, as he chuckled softly and agreed, “Er, yeah, been trying to plumpen him up a bit.” He rubbed his hand over Sherlock’s bulge like it was a tiny Buddha belly, to be sure that there was not a spot left open that the other doctor might try to touch again. “It’s been a chore, though, let me tell you. He’s never been much of an eater.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine,” Dr. Greenwhich said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “As long as all the numbers look good, that’s what matters. Why don’t you let Crystal take all of your measurements and I’ll be in with the ultrasound technician in a tick. I have some paperwork that needs finishing up. Won’t take long.”

The whole time Sherlock stood there, stunned speechless at the audacity of it all. No words, no thoughts, would come to his mind that could describe the sheer amount of disgust he felt at the touch of a stranger’s hand on such an intimate part of his body. Never before had anyone taken such a liberty with him, barely even John would do such a thing.

He was only vaguely aware of John and Dr. Greenwhich talking, but he tried to focus all of his attention on the slow, languid movements John’s hand was making on his tummy, pretending that with each pass of John’s hand over the rounded globe of his flesh, the other man’s touch was erasing the distinctly icky feeling of Dr. Greenwhich’s strange hand on him.

And then, before he knew what was happening again, John was steering him into one of the small, impersonal exam rooms and a short, red-headed nurse entered in after them, going over the tests they were going to run that day and the stats they were going to take from him

This was always the part of the checkups that Sherlock hated the most. The fact that he was still on edge from Dr. Greenwhich’s impromptu touch didn’t help matters at all. He despised having to sit still while some pimply-faced, teenaged, barely certified ‘medical assistant’ poked and prodded him, missing the vein in the crook of his arm twice as they tried to draw blood and holding the measuring tapes too far away from the top, so that they added a few extra centimeters. He was _not_ that big around, after all!

This ‘Crystal’ character seemed a little more jumpy than the last few had been, and she made more mistakes than the others had in the past as she nervously fumbled with all of the medical instruments meant to check his statistics. She wouldn’t look him in the face and she tried to rush through the exam, clearly not comfortable being the one who was performing the tests on Sherlock.

He guessed that he had gained a bit of a reputation among Dr. Greenwhich’s nursing staff, after the last time he had made two of the more emotional women cry during his previous prenatal checkup. And one of the older doctors.

But it wasn’t his fault that they were all _idiots_. _I mean, really_ , he thought with an inward sigh and a roll of his sea green eyes to the ceiling. He could check his own blood pressure more effectively than the moron working over him right now.

“The cuff is far too loose, you know,” he chastised her, when he finally couldn’t take sitting there in silence for another moment. “And you’ve probably contaminated my urine sample by leaving out on the counter without a lid for the past five minutes,” he said, using the arm that had the blood pressure cuff around it to point at the urine sample pointlessly. She knew where the sample was, after all, but he just wanted to prove a point. The cuff slid off of his upper arm to dangle uselessly around his wrist when he moved his arm.

“Oh, er…” The nurse, Crystal—or whatever her silly little name was—blushed profusely and began trying to fix the cuff and put it back into place.

“Sherlock,” came John’s warning voice from across the room, where he had been sitting quietly and patiently, in his usual rigid military posture, while the nurse had been fussing over Sherlock.

But he couldn’t possibly leave well enough alone now, not when he was practically aching from the restraint he had been showing ever since coming to this blasted doctor’s appointment.

“And you have the coldest hands anyone has ever touched me with,” he told the young nurse bluntly as she continued to fiddle with the Velcro on the cuff, as if that were somehow the source of the problem. “It’s like being man-handled by an Eskimo.”

“Sherlock!” John snapped out, his tone harsher this time.

“I—I have poor circulation…” Crystal mumbled, finally giving up on the cuff and simply staring, wide-eyed and blearily, at Sherlock as he sat in the small little exam chair, staring at her rather intensely.

“That explains the stupid as well, then,” he retorted. “Not enough blood getting to your brain. If I were you, I’d think of maybe switching to veterinary medicine. Med school drop outs don’t make very good nurses, either.”

“ _Sherlock!_ ” John was standing now, angry scowl on his face. He was pushing and pushing his luck with his lover, he knew it. And it wouldn’t hold out forever. He knew how much John hated when he was unnecessarily difficult, but there was only so much stupid he could be forced to deal with and, unfortunately, the fetus inside of him seemed to be draining his daily quota lately.

“We’re done now, Crystal,” he said, ripping the blood pressure cuff off of himself.

“B-but, I still n-need to—” her voice was wavering and cracking slightly with the lovely sound of imminent tears.

He shook his head and made a face. “No, sorry, you’ve missed your chance at it.”

“But, sir—”

“Don’t worry,” John said to her reassuringly. “He’s been charting his own progress at home. I snuck a peek at his stats before we left the flat, I can tell you all of them.”

“That’s very nice but—sir!” she exclaimed as Sherlock took the blood pressure cuff he had taken off of himself and balled it up, tossing it across the room and into the stainless steel sink at the other end. “—we still need to take our own measurements.”

She ran over to the sink to try and salvage the poor cuff just as Dr. Greenwhich came back into the room with the ultrasound technician, following closely after him, wheeling in her machine.

“That’s all right, Crystal,” Dr. Greenwhich comforted the little red headed nurse as she sniffled and tried to untangle the mess of Velcro and tubing that Sherlock had made out of the cuff. “Mr. Watson is a doctor, and the only one who can spend any prolonged amount of time around Mr. Holmes without being mortally offended, it seems. We’ll get all the information that we need from him.” He turned stern-looking eyes onto Sherlock. “This once.”

Sherlock was not convinced.

Dr. Greenwhich continued, when Sherlock did nothing but stare at the man blankly. “Mr. Holmes,” he said with a tired sigh and a rub at his eyes underneath his small spectacles. “I do have to ask, though, that you learn to have a little more patience with my nursing staff. You still have several more checkups to go through before the end.”

“I came here for one thing only, doctor,” Sherlock said, unapologetically. “And that was not to be felt up by your staff.”

At that, Crystal reddened again, and a fresh bout of tears came to her eyes. “I didn’t feel him up!” she said, turning to Dr. Greenwhich desperately. “M-my hand accidentally brushed against his c-chest, but I didn’t _feel_ anything, I swear!”

From the other side of the room, Sherlock heard an exasperated, “Oh God,” being exhaled on a scoff by John, and he saw out of the corner of his eye the man turn his back on Sherlock for a moment, to try to compose himself.

“Crystal, it’s all right, I assure you,” Dr. Greenwhich was soothing the girl. “Why don’t you go have a cup of tea in the break room, and I’ll be by a little later to explain patients like Mr. Holmes to you.”

The young girl hiccupped ridiculously and nodded her head, sniffling and wiping at her eyes as she left the room without another glance at Sherlock or anyone else, blood pressure cuff still in hand.

When the door was closed, Dr. Greenwhich waited a moment longer before he said simply, “That’s the fourth one you’ve made cry.”

Sherlock ‘hmm’ed his disinterest. “They shouldn’t be so emotional,” he said indifferently.

“You shouldn’t be such a twat,” John scolded, finally able to trust himself enough to speak.

Sherlock only smiled, happy to get such emotional responses out of everyone over such a little thing. He did also, secretly, like the fact that everyone was being extra tolerant of him lately—something he was beginning to understand he owed to the pregnancy. Apparently people were thinking that he was just being slightly more hormonal than usual.

He liked to use that to his advantage whenever he could.

So instead of giving Dr. Greenwhich an empty promise about being better behaved next time, he decided to ignore the physician’s comment and change the subject. He was delighted when they let him.

“And why are you here, Dr. Greenwhich?” he asked, relaxing back into the exam chair and placing his hands behind his head for extra comfort—the chair didn’t have much padding. “Only a technician can work the ultrasound machine. There isn’t really any need for you to take as much personal interest in me as you have been.”

Dr. Greenwhich chuckled and pulled out a small rolling stool from underneath the counter that the stainless steel sink was attached to. He sat down heavily in it and rolled closer to Sherlock. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Holmes,” he answered. “It’s not just you I am taking such personal care of. I have a handful of other Synathida cases that I am just as equally invested in.”

“And why is that?” John asked, taking his own seat again and sitting with his feet wide apart, hands on each knee. His shoulders were a bit more tense than usual, even for his always-militant posture, and Sherlock had to hide a smile at his handy work.

Even after all these years, he could still push John’s buttons.

Dr. Greenwhich gave John a little smile, and Sherlock noticed the ultrasound technician make a small, uncomfortable sound in her throat and begin to make a show of turning the machine on and calibrating it noisily, turning her back to the doctor.

“You boys never got to meet my partner,” Dr. Greenwhich began with a clearing of his throat. “He died a few years ago. Three, actually, this coming November, long before I hired you and Dr. Watson here to help me when Mikayla got kidnapped. But, he was a wonderful man. The best.” There was a long pause as Dr. Greenwhich stared at his hands, resting in his lap, and Sherlock exchanged quizzical glances with John.

“We had been together for 15 years before we decided that we should adopt a child together,” Dr. Greenwhich continued, once he had composed himself again. “It was Mark’s greatest dream, which he had put off for me because I hadn’t thought we were ready. But then we found Mikayla, my daughter whom you saved last year.” At the mention of the girl’s name, the sadness that had stolen over the older doctor’s face disappeared, and a smile replaced it. “We decided to push through the adoption papers right away, we both fell so madly in love with her. But then…” There was another long pause, as Dr. Greenwhich’s voice cracked horribly, and not even Penny made a peep as she stood by the ultrasound machine. “Mark died, Mr. Holmes, before the adoption was finalized, in a car crash.”

Sherlock stared at the man before him. He had known that Dr. Greenwhich’s spouse had died not long before he had taken the case of his kidnapped daughter—the man still had had a tan line on his ring finger and there had been pictures missing from the walls of his house, taken down and never replaced with new ones—but he had not taken the time to realize that Dr. Greenwhich’s spouse had been another man, or that there had been so much guilt attached to his death.

“He never got the chance to know the happiness that a child brings into your life, simply by being there,” the physician continued, voice cracking now in earnest. “I feel like I was the one who kept that from him. Because I made him wait so long to have it.”

For once, Sherlock didn’t need John to tell him that he needed to hold his tongue, that he needed to stay quiet and not ruin this moment. And, for once, he listened to his instincts and let the man have a moment to compose himself again.

Dr. Greenwhich cleared his throat a few times, and blinked rather rapidly behind his small, half-moon glasses. When a decent amount of time passed he spoke again, and his voice was strong and level once again. “So, now, when Synathida can give men that feeling that Mark was looking for, how can I just sit back and not help this time, Mr. Holmes? I owe it to Mark to give every man who wants to have this opportunity the chance to make their dreams a reality. And I will fight with every breath in me to continue to do so for the rest of my life. That is why each and every one of my Synathida cases is so important to me. That is why I have so selfishly asked all of my staff to put up with the protests, and the rallies, and the mess that this is all turning out to be.” He smiled over at the ultrasound tech, who smiled shyly back at him. “And all of my employees have been very understanding of my desire to do this. And I appreciate every single one of them.”

Sherlock sat there for a long moment, not quite sure what to say. Words in these types of situations were not his strong suit—they never had been—and he was slightly relieved when John cleared his throat from across the room and broke the strangling silence that was settling on them.

“That’s…I didn’t know about you and your husband, when we were helping you get Mikayla back,” John said, a bit awkwardly.

“No,” Dr. Greenwhich agreed, shaking his head and swiveling his chair around to face the blonde doctor. “I don’t speak about him often. It is still…painful.”

“Of course,” John said, quickly, with a small dip of his head.

“But enough of that,” Dr. Greenwhich said, spinning in his chair once again so that he was facing Sherlock once more. “I don’t mean to put a damper on such a wonderful day for you two boys. Penny,” he called out to the ultrasound technician, “are we up and running?”

“Aye aye, captain,” the woman confirmed with a smile, punching in a last line of data on the keypad of the machine and grabbing the Doppler wand up, putting it at the ready.

“Let’s get to it, then, shall we?” Dr. Greenwhich asked, his smile growing to epic proportions.

Sherlock couldn’t help himself—he fidgeted slightly in his seat, the only indication of his emotions at the upcoming event. He had tried to talk himself out of being excited over such a silly thing. It was only the sex of a child—it was a simple 50/50 chance that it could be one of two things…not really a big surprise. And ultimately, the sex meant nothing to him. It would not change the outcome of his experiment, or create a variable in his data. This sonogram meant nothing in terms of statistics and numbers and records.

And yet…

And yet, he couldn’t help the light quivering of nervousness and anticipation that he felt, despite his best efforts. Because this was, in all actuality, _life changing_ , and try as he might to not believe otherwise, deep down he knew that.

John, it seemed, couldn’t control his anticipation either. He stood from his stiff chair in the corner of the exam room and made his way over to Sherlock, to stand by the man and be able to see the screen of the ultrasound machine better.

When the tech had Sherlock’s abdomen gelled and ready, she pushed the Doppler wand into his stomach rather harshly, trying to be sure she could get a good, clear picture up on the screen. He winced as the end of the wand dug into his organs uncomfortably, but his eyes never once left the small black and white screen that everyone in the room was staring at intently.

For what, he couldn’t yet tell. As far as he was concerned, the screen looked like a bad telly that was turned to an off-air channel. It was snowy and murky-looking, and Sherlock couldn’t distinguish one thing on the screen from another.

But, it seemed that he was the only one.

“There’s your cecum,” the technician said, frowning and digging into Sherlock’s belly a little harder.

“That looks like the appendix,” John said suddenly, pointing to the screen. As if to confirm his words, there was a quick flicker of movement on the screen, something a regular organ of Sherlock’s surely could not make.

“Yes,” the tech agreed, focused on the screen in front of her. She gave a little twist to the wand, keeping it pressed harshly into Sherlock’s stomach. “And right _here_ is…”

She pointed to the screen, and to a small, almost bean-shaped figure that could barely be seen through the black and white static lines all around it.

Beside him, John smiled, grinning from ear to ear. “Look, Sherlock,” he said, his voice teasing. “It has your wavy black lines.”

Sherlock couldn’t even be bothered with thinking of a response for John. Not when he was so intent on deciphering what he saw on the screen. But all of his medical knowledge, all of his skills of deduction, could not make the ultrasound any easier to read.

He didn’t have to though, it would seem. Because the technician turned to him then, face alight with happiness. “Congratulations,” she told him with a smile. “It’s a boy.”

And suddenly he felt like he was disappearing behind the placid, pale glow of the sonogram screen that was surrounding them softly.

Xxx

John’s world had been effectively narrowed down to just three people in the past half hour. Him, Sherlock, and their little boy.

A boy.

He had always wanted a boy.

Someone he could play football with, someone he could teach how to shoot and take hunting, someone he could hug proudly on the day that they told him they wanted to serve their country, just like him…

A little boy.

He realized he was grinning like an idiot as they walked down the busy streets and back towards their side of town and he tried to stop, but when he glanced over at Sherlock and saw that the other man was doing the very same, he gave up the effort and just let the smile spread.

Sherlock turned to him then, catching his eye, and he opened his mouth to say something when someone suddenly ran into him as he was walking, a man in a brown leather jacket that instantly reached out to him to make sure he didn’t fall as the two collided.

“Terribly sorry, sir, didn’t mean to—” the man said, turning to face Sherlock. John was instantly by the brunette’s side, pulling him away from the stranger, but the man gave Sherlock one look and his words cut off, face suddenly splitting into a wide grin. “Oy, you’re that bloke!” he said suddenly, his whole face lighting up when he looked at Sherlock and recognized who he was. “That—that Holmes fella! The one who took the Synathida, right?”

John instantly tensed and pulled Sherlock away from the man, stepping forward between them.

But the man reached a hand back out to grab at Sherlock’s wrist, keeping him close. “I just want to tell you thank you,” he said unexpectedly, moving his hand down to shake Sherlock’s in a quick movement and then releasing him altogether.

“What?” Sherlock asked, confused.

“Thank you,” the man repeated. “I know you’ve been in the papers before, but you’ve always seemed like a normal guy who’s just caught the interest of the media. I’m mean, you’re not, like, famous or anything,” he said with a bit of a shrug. “And so when they wrote about you taking the Synathida, it seemed more…real, ‘ya know? Like, regular blokes just deciding to do something great. It’s really inspired me.” He smiled again, and John didn’t know anything about the man but he could tell that the smile was genuine. Happy.

“I’ve decided to come out to me family, and introduce them to me boyfriend of 9 years,” the man continued excitedly. “We want to take the pill, too. And we’ve even decided to get married before we get pregnant!” He laughed, as if he couldn’t really believe it himself. “I never wanted to because me family didn’t know about us, but we want to have kids together. And, if someone like you can come out and do it, then why can’t someone like me?”

“You’re very kind,” Sherlock said politely, inching away from the man and John followed him, neither turning their backs on the stranger, “but, really, we didn’t mean for this to affect anyone else other than ourselves.” He gave the man what John liked to call his ‘newspaper smile’ (the one he saved for press conferences and pictures) and continued to walk away from him. “I’m happy for you, but we didn’t have anything to do with the decisions you’ve made in your life. Congratulations, though. Very happy for you. Wish you all the best.”

And with that done, Sherlock turned around to leave the man behind, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“You may not think you didn’t have anything to do with the decisions I’ve made,” the man continued telling them, coming around so that he was in front of them again, refusing to be ignored. “But I’m not the only one to be inspired by you. I keep reading about all those anti-Synath protests, but you should know that they aren’t the only people who have strong feelings about the pill.” Somewhere close by, a clock chimed the hour and the man looked down at his wrist watch with a small curse. “Well, I got to run. On me way to a prenatal checkup and I’m late!” With a finally, friendly wave goodbye he left, leaving Sherlock and John standing on the sidewalk, staring concernedly at each other.

“Did he just tell me that I wasn’t famous?” Sherlock asked after a moment of stunned silence. “How utterly rude. Doesn’t he know that my ego thrives on the fact that I get attention from complete strangers daily?”

John laughed at Sherlock’s lame attempt at a joke, but it was a forced sound. “Sherlock, do you think he’s right?” he asked the consulting detective, a worried frown coming over his face suddenly. “About you inspiring other people to take the pill?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, John,” the brunette said with a flippant wave of his hand and a small scowl. He started walking again and John could do nothing but follow him. “You know as well as I do that one person can’t change the minds of hundreds of people without even doing anything at all! These people don’t know me; why would they flip their lives upside down to make a decision that I have nothing to do wi—?”

Sherlock’s words were cut off as they rounded the corner of their block and stopped dead in their tracks. A large group of people were standing outside their front door, many with cameras and press badges, but many more without them.

Nervously, John ducked his head and reached out to grab a hold of Sherlock’s hand, walking straight into the heart of the crowd and hoping that this would be over soon. He wanted nothing more than a hot shower and a good cup of tea.

Surprisingly, the two made it more than half-way through the crowd without anyone noticing who they were, but when the first person shouted out “It’s them!” their world exploded in a bang of camera flashes and questions shouted at them.

John squeezed Sherlock’s hand tighter and tugged on it gently to bring him closer, but the crowd around them was closing in fast and making it harder for them to move forward.

“Mr. Holmes, Mr. Holmes!”

“Have you just come back from visiting your doctor?”

“Did you have a sonogram today?”

“Did you find out the sex of your baby?”

John was shoving past photographers and reporters aggressively, suddenly not caring about propriety or politeness. He was coming dangerously close to panicking when someone suddenly grabbed onto him, pulling him harshly away from a few photographers who were closing in around him.

And for the first time, he noticed that parts of the crowd were moving against him, backwards, and pushing the outer ring of people—where all the media reporters stood—back, away from the door of Baker Street and away from them.

Dazed, John took a moment to look around him. Still faces—smiling, comforting—surrounded him, not shouting stupid questions or curses at them. The people around them were quiet and unmoving, not trying to keep him and Sherlock from entering their flat but actually opening a way for them.

Behind him, John could hear the mechanical whiz of flashes still going off, and the questions and comments never ceased, but they were far enough away now that he didn’t fear them. He was too focused on what was happening in front of him.

Still holding Sherlock’s hand, John took a tentative step forward and was vaguely surprised when the crowd didn’t close back in around them, attempting to swallow them whole. Instead, a man stepped forward, older and fierce-looking with a full facial beard and long, scraggily hair.

“Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson?” the man asked, but he didn’t wait for answer. “My name’s James McNairn. I’m the head of the pro-Synath activist group. And I’d like to welcome you home.”

Xxx

“What are they doing back here?” John asked, pacing the living room of 221b Baker Street in an agitated manner, hands fluttering as fast as his feet as he stomped back and forth from one wall to the next. Sherlock, of all people, had had to put the kettle on and offer Mr. McNairn tea and biscuits, seemingly much more calm about the whole thing than John himself was. “They left us alone after they couldn’t get any information confirmed,” the blonde doctor continued to mutter, while Sherlock and McNairn sat in the chairs in the living room, watching John fidget. “And we’ve only just been back from Sherlock’s prenatal checkup. That isn’t enough time for them all to have met up outside our flat like that.”

McNairn took that moment to speak, throwing down the morning’s newspaper on the coffee table, and both John and Sherlock leaned forward to look at the front page.

“It wasn’t the checkup today that did it,” McNairn said as the boys quickly scanned the article. “It was released today. There’s no official confirmation yet, since no one who knows you personally has made a statement. But with a photo like this, a statement confirming the pregnancy is just a nicety.”

It was a picture of him and Sherlock walking together down a London street. The wind had caught them just right and Sherlock’s coat, which just so happened to be unbuttoned in the photograph, was blown back, revealing the too-tight shirt he had worn that day and the telltale bump that could be seen through it. Beside him, John was laughing at something Sherlock had just finished saying, his head thrown back and his cheeks flushed from the biting wind. In his hands were all the bags from _Le Petite Boutique_ and the menswear shop that was located next door to the baby store. He suddenly remembered what day the photograph must have been taken on—the day they had told everyone the news, the day they had bought the crib.

“Well, that’s damning evidence if I’ve ever seen any,” John mumbled with a sigh, resigning themselves to being screwed. He stood up again once he had skimmed the article—nothing more than barely truthful facts and poor guesses at what was going on in Sherlock’s life—and rubbed a hand over his face.

“And why are you here, Mr. McNairn,” Sherlock suddenly spoke up, his voice deep and almost seeming to echo in the stillness of 221b. “If I may be so presumptuous as to ask?”

For his part, James McNairn had the good grace to look faintly ashamed of himself, and fidget in his chair slightly. But it was hard to look chagrined with a full facial beard and the scraggily demeanor of an aging hipster.

“You’re wondering why we are here now, the pro-Synaths, I bet, yeah?” he asked, taking a small sip of tea and a part of John cringed as the man’s grimy fingers clutched the delicate handle of his mother’s antique tea cup. “Well, just like everyone else, we only found out about you for sure today.”

“But what about before?” Sherlock asked, his tone not gentle. “When the anti-Synaths were gathering protest rallies at the Renaissance Medical Plaza, and the free clinics where men who didn’t want their identities traced were going to get the pills, and all the other doctor’s offices in London that were getting bombarded by those radicals? Where were you then?”

“As I’m sure you well know, Mr. Holmes,” McNairn said, his voice a little harsh at being accused in such a way, “it is a lot harder to find people who are willing to go against the public majority and fight for a noble cause than it is to gather up an angry mob hell bent on telling you that you are living your life wrong. Is that not right?”

“So, then, what are you doing here, of all places?” John interjected, not liking the growing tension that was settling in his living room as Sherlock and McNairn continued to stare at one another, sizing each other up.

“Well, you’ve already been in the paper before about this situation—last week—though they didn’t really make a big ordeal about it. But, when only one newspaper released the story today, we figured that it was going to be a mad-house at your flat today, and we’ve finally got enough people for our cause to make a difference once the lot of the anti-Synaths gather up.”

“That’s not all, though,” Sherlock said, scathingly. “You also want to use this incident to get your name out there, don’t you? A pretty good opportunity, I must say. You knew where the majority of news reporters would be today, and you could get a nice publicity shot in while you introduced your group of pro-Synaths to London. What could be more noble an introduction to the world than being seen helping a poor couple cope with the atrocities brought on by the paparazzi and the anti-Synaths? Am I right?”

“Yeah, I’d heard about your little tricks you like to play with people,” McNairn said cautiously, eyeing Sherlock suspiciously from underneath his scraggily eyebrows. “Tearing them down so that you can show them what’s what. But, believe it or not, Mr. Holmes, we are here to help you. We did already, did we not?”

“Yes, you did,” John answered the man quickly, because he knew that Sherlock did not respond well to people telling him that he needed them. He put a warning hand on Sherlock’s tense shoulder and held it there. It wouldn’t do for Sherlock to anger the only people who were fighting the same battle as he was now. “Thank you for that. It was very helpful.”

“Don’t mention it,” McNairn said with a nonchalant wave of his dirty hand. “We’re in this together now, after all. And we have to start looking out for our friends.”

James took one last drink from his cup, the delicate, gold inlaid porcelain looking ridiculous against his dark stained denim jacket and the purple, wrinkled tunic he wore beneath it, and stood up to leave. Sherlock followed suit, to escort the man to the door and John followed close behind them.

“Thanks for the tea, lads,” McNairn said, turning on the landing to give the boys one last look. “And for the photo opp,” he admitted freely. He gave both John and Sherlock a stern look, one that spoke of many wars waged and some even won, and John could see even in the poor light on the landing that the lines on his face were etched deep and hard into his skin.

“I’m sorry we didn’t meet under better circumstances, Mr. Holmes,” McNairn said, and John could tell that, if nothing else, he was being sincere about that particular fact. “But I think you should remember that we’re on the same side now. And people like me…I’m just trying to make this world a better place for people like you and your partner to live in. And for you to raise your child in. Remember that.”

And then he turned and descended the stairs of 221b, leaving Sherlock and John standing out on the landing and looking down after him as he opened the front door and walked out onto Baker Street, getting swallowed up by the crowd of reporters and flashes of light that had made their way back to the stoop.

Xxx

The picture was everywhere suddenly. Even more popular and annoying than the one of Sherlock in that silly little hat that had plagued his nightmares years before.

Both Sherlock and John refused to leave their flat for days after the incident and had Mrs. Hudson go out and bring them up take out and all the newspapers she could find.

Sherlock stayed surprisingly complacent over the next few days, not even complaining that Lestrade was not calling about cases and nothing was coming in over the blog. Little did he know that John had texted Greg not to call about a case on penalty of castration, and that John had disabled the wireless card on his laptop, so that the automatic _ding_ of an email coming in didn’t go off.

But Sherlock hardly even seemed to notice the lack of work. For the most part, he sat on the couch and watched crap telly with Mrs. Hudson for most of the day, while John went about moving furniture in his old room and making it more baby-friendly. And when Sherlock wasn’t lying sprawled out on the couch, he was up at the window of the living room, looking down onto the news reporters still camping out on the sidewalk of Baker Street, composing bits and pieces of music, some soft and sweet and sad, and others a little more tumultuous.

After a while John even tried to get a rise out of Sherlock just for the hell of it, turning to the quiet brunette man one morning after Mrs. Hudson had dropped off the morning paper and some pastries, and John opened the periodical up to find yet another article about them in it. This one was on the fourth page and seemed decidedly smaller than the ones from the previous day—a good sign. It meant that the whole ordeal was dying down somewhat and that they could continue on with their normal lives soon. For each article that came out, there was always some piece of new information that the reporters had found out. How far along Sherlock was, the sex of the baby, how he was balancing work, theories on his career plans for after the baby was born. It was all rather disturbing, but John was glad it was finally winding down.

“For someone who says they don’t like the attention,” he teased Sherlock as the brunette lay sprawled out on the couch, long legs dangling over the armrest and a cup of tea resting on the growing mound of his belly, “you sure do get your photo in the paper an awful lot.”

He was disappointed though, and more than a little worried, when the only response he got was a mumbled “Shut up, John,” and Sherlock simply turned the volume of the telly up, otherwise ignoring the man completely.

_No, not good at all_ , John thought worriedly.

Xxx

If Sherlock had thought that the few people harassing him before that first newspaper article was released was bad, it was nothing compared to the amount of attention he received after the article’s print.

When he and John had finally deemed it safe enough to venture back outside of 221b Baker Street, dozens of strangers seemed to now stop him every day, whether to tell him congratulations or to say that he was going to burn in hell for his unholy sins. A few cried. A few others threw balled up newspapers, Styrofoam cups of tea, muffins, and rude finger symbols— whatever they had in their hands at the moment that they recognized him on the street.

And Sherlock was becoming more than a little fed up with the whole ordeal.

A part of him was glad when John finally texted Lestrade back and lifted the case-ban he had so unsubtly imposed on Baker Street a couple of days after the two had first started venturing out of the flat again, and the detective inspector called not long after with a job. It was hardly interesting—barely even a two on the scale—but the need to be out of Baker Street, to be doing something, anything, to take his mind off of things was great. And the low rate of the case on Sherlock’s scale meant that John felt okay leaving Sherlock to work on that one alone, while he went back to the surgery.

He dawdled with the case a bit, intent on spending as much time on work as he could. It may not have been like him to take so long with such an easy case, but he was coming to understand that these increasingly rare moments when he didn’t have to think about his future, or his decision to take the Synathida, or the damned pregnancy, were coming fewer and farther between, and he was going to hold on to any semblance of his old life that he could.

But after he had solved the riddle and Lestrade had raced out of the precinct to go apprehend the perpetrator, Sherlock knew that his job at Scotland Yard was not done yet. There was one more thing that he needed to do, before he went home to Baker Street.

He left Lestrade’s office, going out into the common area where all of the other officers had their desks set up. In one corner of the room, he found Donovan and Anderson, heads bent low over a piece of paper on the curly headed female’s desk, going over the results of some test.

He made his way quietly over to them, noting that they were the only three in the room at this late hour, and he had to remind himself to hurry home; John would no doubt start to worry if Sherlock didn’t text him soon. And the last thing he wanted was to be fussed over by John.

When he got closer to the couple, they looked up at the sound of his soft footsteps, and both wore identical grimaces upon seeing him.

They were definitely spending way too much time together, in Sherlock’s opinion.

“Freak and Freak, Jr. are still here, I see,” Donovan said acidly, by way of greeting.

Anderson smirked slightly at the jab and Sherlock ignored the remark, with amazing self-restraint.

But he had not come over here to get into a game of wits with them. He didn’t have the time, energy or the patience to rub the lack of necessary equipment to win such a game in their faces. No, he had come over for one thing and one thing only…

“I know that you’re the ones who have been leaking information on my…condition to the press,” he responded instead, stopping in front of them and standing tall before them. His stance was a little less imposing because of the bulge sticking out from underneath his overcoat, but he didn’t let them know that that bothered him. “I know we’ve never been friends, Donovan, but this isn’t just me you’re hurting now,” he continued, staring the woman straight in the face.

For her part, she stood her ground rather well, squaring her shoulders and raising her chin. He knew he couldn’t intimidate her, not with his belly and not when she was used to hearing and seeing worse things in such a male-based profession. So he tried to play to her more feminine emotions. “John worries about what the stress will do to the baby,” he told her plainly, “and I’ve already been labeled as high risk. You have no idea what consequences you can bring about with your little stunts.”

Donovan stared at him for a long moment, and Anderson stood quietly beside her, both not seeming to be bothered by Sherlock’s accusation at all. He knew that it was them, and they knew that he would have figured it out sooner rather than later, and there was no sense trying to hide the fact any more.

But the frizzy haired woman just shrugged, as if the whole situation didn’t seem to bother her at all. “Well, I’m sorry, Sherlock,” she said, and her tone was careless and flippant, the usual way she talked to him, “but that’s really not my fault. You knew what would happen to your life if you succeeded in this… _circus act_.” Her words took on a venomous tone and it was hard for Sherlock not to react as she spoke of his pregnancy in such a way. “Don’t stand there and tell me that you didn’t think the media would go crazy over their precious Sherlock Holmes becoming even more of a freak.” She shook her head, and her frizzy hair moved about her face annoyingly. “No, you can’t blame this on us, Sherlock. I don’t believe we’re doing anything wrong.”

“Nothing wrong?” Sherlock repeated, incredulously. “You are selling information on an innocent baby—one that’s not even born yet—just so that you can get a quick fifteen minutes of fame!” He visibly shook with the effort to restrain himself from reaching out and wrapping his large hands around the bitch’s throat, from wrestling her gun from her holster and putting a bullet in Anderson’s brain as he stood there beside her, silently sneering and letting her fight his battle as well as her own.

The two revolted him.

“Are you that jealous, Donovan, that you will stop at nothing to have your moment in the spotlight, where I have been for years because of my talents?” he asked, leaning in closer to her and dropping his voice to a deep whisper. “Giving the reporters a quick story, getting paid for your services like a cheap whore. That’s all that you’re doing—selling my dignity, and John’s, and what little you have left to your own name.” He pulled away from her and sneered at her. “You disgust me,” he said venomously, his voice shaking with the restraint to not say more to her. “You are the worst kind of vermin on this earth and I’m sorry that my child will ever have to know people like you in his lifetime.”

He turned to leave, satisfied and proud of himself that he had held on to most of his self-control. So very unlike him.

But before he could even take a step away from them, Anderson spoke up, only able to defend himself and Donovan when Sherlock had already turned his back.

“Yes, well, I’m sure your kid will get used to dealing with those kinds of people,” the man said in his weasely voice, and Sherlock stopped moving and stood still, turning back around slowly as Anderson continued, “what with his daddy being a psychotic, self-absorbed, drug addict. He’ll have to get used to all sorts of disappointments in his life.”

And before Sherlock could stop to think about what he was doing, before he could try to rationalize a better solution to the situation, before he could even worry about the consequences of his actions, he pulled a fist back and punched Anderson squarely in the face, his hand meeting the other man’s nose with a very satisfying, very loud, cracking sound.

Xxx

He got the rebuking of a lifetime for that one. Both from John and from Lestrade. He didn’t mind, though. He didn’t even mind the soreness in his hand or the pinch in his back from the fast movement he had done when he had pulled back to punch Anderson in the face. In fact, they felt rather good when he thought of the broken nose he had given the other man, and the look on Donovan’s face as she had bent down to help her boyfriend back up.

Anderson had wanted to press charges, of course, and John had complained that that was the last thing he and Sherlock needed, for the press to get wind of Sherlock’s anger and aggression and turn the whole thing into another spectacle. Lestrade had had to be called in as a mediator, like a head-teacher trying to get two school children to play nicely with each other, and it was agreed that Sherlock would acquiesce to the charges brought up against him as long as no more information was leaked to the newspapers about Sherlock’s condition, or what went on in his life. A rather anti-climactic end to the whole ordeal, but one that seemed to make John content, though he was still upset about the whole situation in the first place, and when everything was squared away, he imperiously told Sherlock that he was going out to the pub with Lestrade for a bit, and that Sherlock shouldn’t expect him home any time soon.

Sherlock guessed he deserved that, but he still couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that was beginning to grow in the pit of his stomach, as he watched John and Lestrade walk off together, the detective inspector throwing a genial arm around the blonde doctor’s shoulders and making John laugh at something that he said.

Xxx

Once inside the pub, John let out a harsh sigh as he slid into the chair at a back table, Lestrade falling into the one beside him.

It was getting harder and harder to keep Sherlock in line these days. Not that it was ever easy. But at least before the pregnancy, he could anticipate what Sherlock was going to do, he could kind-of-sort-of know what Sherlock was thinking. But lately, Sherlock had been doing nothing but sitting on the couch watching the telly and not speaking to him, or staring out the window of their living room and playing his violin, or writing down endless notes in his journals.

It wasn’t unusual for Sherlock to go for days without speaking. In fact, that in and of itself was very common. But after spending years together, working as a team and living as lovers, John had gotten very good at reading Sherlock, much as the other man didn’t like to think so.

But recently…

Recently, everything had been going to hell.

“Want a pint?” Lestrade asked him suddenly, and John jumped as he remembered that he wasn’t alone at the table. Not unusual, because he felt that he was always alone lately.

“Something a bit stronger for tonight, I think,” he answered the detective inspector with a tired smile, and when the waitress came to take their order, he got himself a double shot of whiskey.

“Does he take that much out of you, then?” Lestrade asked, after the waitress left their table.

John didn’t say anything in response, but his silence was answer enough.

They didn’t speak for a little while, remaining quiet as the waitress brought their drinks and they ordered a few more rounds, John deciding that it would be safer if he stuck to beer after his shot. He knew that Lestrade was waiting for him to say something, that he was wanting John to bring up the reason for the doctor’s anger, but John couldn’t seem to find the right words while he was sober.

So the two just continued to drink in silence while John thought about Sherlock and the pregnancy, and everything else that was going wrong in his life.

“It’s just so ridiculous,” he finally said out loud, when the alcohol had done enough of its job to loosen his tongue and lower his inhibitions a bit. “He doesn’t even like kids. I don’t know why on earth he thought that he should…”

He trailed off, taking another long draught from his mug and Lestrade stared at him from across the table, hard.

“Who knows why Sherlock does any of the things he does?” he said, giving a small, useless shrug of his shoulders.

“He told me once, when he first got pregnant, that it was the ‘penultimate experiment’,” John told Lestrade, his tongue slurring over the last two words, rolling his eyes as he noted how very Sherlockian they sounded. Pompous and full of themselves.

“Experiment?” Lestrade repeated, raising a hand to flag the waitress down again. “Is that what he did it for, then? As an experiment?”

John shrugged his shoulders, but they both knew the answer to Lestrade’s question.

“He’s a fucking loon,” the detective inspector said with a disbelieving sigh. “That anyone would go through all this mess for a bloody _experiment_ or to prove a fucking _point_ …I’m sorry that you have to put up with him John,” he said suddenly, looking the blonde man in the eyes and trailing a hand closer to the edge of the table nervously. “I’m so sorry that he puts you through all of this, that he doesn’t treat you better. I—”

And suddenly Lestrade’s hand was on his own, as it lay motionlessly next to his now-empty mug. For a second John didn’t comprehend the other man’s touch through the haze that the alcohol was beginning to create, but it didn’t take long before he realized that Lestrade’s fingers were stroking softly over the tender flesh of the back of his palm, and he could only stare at their hands for a moment, at a loss as to what to do.

“—I think Sherlock doesn’t understand what a wonderful guy you are, John. Anybody would be lucky to have you in their lives, and Sherlock bloody Holmes doesn’t even know what he has.”

Lestrade’s hand gripped his tighter now, and it may have just been the alcohol and the crowd in the pub but it seemed as if the space between the two men was closing, and they were getting closer to each other. “I would never think of hurting you like he has, John,” Lestrade was saying softly, and John was surprised to find that he could smell Lestrade’s aftershave, even through the smoke of the pub, and that he could feel the heat coming off of the other man, and suddenly there were lips pressing up against his own, and his mind went blank at the feel of the unfamiliar pressure against his mouth, so different from Sherlock’s.

So different from Sherlock’s.

His brain suddenly snapped back into focus and he realized with a jolt that Lestrade was kissing him, rather gentlemanly and chastely, but still—it was a kiss from someone who was not Sherlock.

He jerked back quickly, turning his head away from Lestrade, and he removed his hand from underneath the detective inspectors to bring it up to his mouth, trying to wrap his mind around the impression he still felt on it from the other man’s lips.

“Greg…”

“I’m sorry, John,” Lestrade said, sitting back in his chair and putting the distance between them back to the appropriate amount. And although he apologized, John got the distinct feeling that he wasn’t sorry about his actions at all. “I just couldn’t help it. I’ve had feelings for you for such a long time, and I’ve wanted to tell you, but…”

_But you’ve been with Sherlock._

John sighed heavily, trying to push down a growing frustration at everything that seemed to be snow-balling in his life.

Couldn’t things ever just be easy for him? Couldn’t he just spend a few months without some new catastrophe, or life-changing event taking place? Was it really too much to ask for just a brief period of normality in his world?

“Greg, I can’t deal with this right now,” he complained, shaking his head to try to clear it. “Not with everything that’s been going on with Sherlock, and the pregnancy, and the newspapers. It’s just…”

“I know, John,” Lestrade cut him off. “God, I’m such a prat, for throwing this at you, too. I just wanted you to know that I’m here for you, John, even if Sherlock isn’t. And I’d be willing to give you everything that he isn’t. Because you deserve it John. And you don’t deserve what he’s doing to you. I’ve always thought that.”

John’s eyes fell shut as Lestrade spoke to him, giving him reassurement, giving him attention, giving him encouragement, all the things he had not been getting from Sherlock recently.

“I…” He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think. The alcohol and the crowd in the pub were giving everything a distorted sort of feeling, and he really just needed a bit of fresh air and a good night’s sleep. “Just walk me home, you tosser,” he finally said with a grin.

Lestrade grinned back at him, looking slightly relieved that John wasn’t upset with him, and when the two stood up, the detective inspector had to help John steady himself, wrapping an arm around the blonde man’s waist that he kept there even after John had found his balance.

They stumbled back to Baker Street drunkenly, tripping over each other and their own feet and giggling like school boys doing something naughty. When they got to the door of John’s flat, Lestrade pushed the blonde man up against the closed door, and before he could lean in John had the presence of mind to push him away gently, shaking his head slowly. “Don’t, Greg,” he said, his eyes moving up to look at the building above him. Even though they were directly under the window of his and Sherlock’s flat, it was still irrational for Lestrade to try something so scandalous right on their doorstep.

The drunken man seemed to comprehend this, if only slightly, and he let up trying to lean back into John. Instead, he lifted his hand from John’s waist and cupped the blonde man’s cheek with it, his thumb stroking softly over John’s unshaven skin. “I like you, John. I may regret telling you this in the morning, but I don’t care. I just want you to be happy. With him or with me.”

John nodded his head in understanding, but didn’t trust himself to speak.

“I hate seeing what he’s putting you through,” Lestrade continued, his warm hand still on John’s face. His voice was the ghost of a whisper, but they stood so close to one another that John could hear every word he said. “If he wasn’t bloody Sherlock Holmes, it wouldn’t be this difficult for you.”

At that, John couldn’t help but smile. “If he wasn’t bloody Sherlock Holmes,” he said, his speech slurred, “I wouldn’t be interested.”

Xxx

When John finally managed to stumble his way up the stairs and into 221b, he was unsurprised to see Sherlock sitting in his dark gray leather chair, violin in hand and icy, strange colored eyes staring penetratingly at the door to their flat.

John stood in the doorway for a moment, like a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but neither of them said anything. When John at last made a move towards their bedroom, Sherlock’s voice finally rang out, deep and deadly and dark in the silence of the flat.

“You’ve been gone for a while. Have fun while you were out?” His large, pale hands plucked at the strings of his violin dangerously, pulling severe staccato notes from it in an ungentle manner.

John gulped slightly and knew he was in for it then. “Yeah, actually,” he remarked defiantly. “Greg and I had a grand time of it.” Let Sherlock think what he would of it; John was tired of walking on eggshells around the man.

“ ‘Greg’?” Sherlock repeated, his tone and his face deceivingly blank.

John swayed slightly on his feet and was suddenly aware that he was still very, very tipsy. “Sorry,” he mocked, prolonging the word with a small, inebriated chuckle. “ _Detective Inspector Lestrade_ to you, then.”

“I know who ‘Greg’ is John,” Sherlock suddenly snapped out, his thick, dark eyebrows coming together in a frown. “I just didn’t realize you were on a first name basis with him.”

“Well, I guess there’s a lot of things you haven’t bothered learning about me lately,” the blonde man said stuffily, as the world swam in his vision and he suddenly had to reach a hand out to steady himself against the wall.

On the other side of the room, Sherlock gave him an inquisitive look. “Are we really going to do this right now, John?” he asked, tiredly. “You’re drunk.”

“So?” John retorted, angry. “Just ‘cause I’m drunk doesn’t mean I’m still not mad at you.”

And now Sherlock stood in a decisive, yet perhaps not as swift as it once would have been, movement. “What on earth are you mad at me for?” he asked with a sigh, setting his violin down gently on the cushion of his chair and turning around to face John once again. “I apologized to Anderson for breaking his nose, even though I didn’t think I needed to—I probably did him a favor and made it a sight straighter.”

John groaned, throwing his head back and rolling his eyes towards the ceiling, the movement almost enough to knock him over even with his hand on the wall. “Not that, Sherlock,” he cried out, exasperated. “God, everything doesn’t revolve around you, you know!”

Sherlock stared at him quietly for a long moment, and John couldn’t discern what the other man was thinking to save his life. “Then what?” Sherlock asked him. “What did I do this time? Hurt your feelings, ignored you, said something mean and snide? Tell me what it is so that we can just get this done and over with and I can go to bed.”

Drunk as he was, John still winced at Sherlock’s words. Dismissive and uninterested, as usual. That was the way Sherlock usually treated him; he’d thought that he would be used to it by now. “Yeah, Sherlock, ignoring me is as good a one as any,” he said, frowning. “You’ve been doing that a lot lately. I feel like I hardly even know you anymore.”

At this Sherlock threw his hands up in the air, irritated. “John, stop being ridiculous—I’m not ignoring you any more than I would on a regular basis.”

If John had been sober, he might have caught that particular admission. But his mind was on other things, now.

“That’s not true,” he argued, pointing an accusing finger at Sherlock from across the room. “You haven’t talked to me for days; you won’t even look at me. And I can’t even remember the last time we…” his voice trailed off demurely, a hot blush springing to his cheeks.

For a second, Sherlock just stared at him, speechless, and John fidgeted underneath his intense gaze. And then he slowly started making his way across the living room, his movements slightly predatory and the look on his face indefinable.

“So you want me to pay attention to you, John?” he asked as he came closer to the blonde man, who stayed rooted in his spot against the wall, like an animal getting cornered. He didn’t know what Sherlock was playing at, but the look on the brunette’s face as he came ever closer to John told him that it was useless to fight it. “You want me to give you the same kind of attention you think you can get from Lestrade? Okay, I will, then.”

John frowned, and his heart skipped a beat in fear. “What are you talking abo—”

But his question was cut off as Sherlock grabbed him, pushing him up against the wall of their living room and kissing him harshly.

Sherlock’s mouth was hard on his, unyielding and demanding, tearing John’s lips apart with the hot press of his tongue and taking him ferociously, tasting every inch of the inside of his mouth.

When Sherlock finally pulled away from his mouth to bite harshly at the skin of his neck, licking the marks gently after he made them, John tried to draw breath to speak, but the words didn’t seem to want to come out right.

“W-what are…you—ungh…” his sentence trailed off into a low groan as Sherlock’s hands grabbed at his cock through his trousers, squeezing and rubbing it roughly.

“I’m giving you some attention, John,” Sherlock said darkly against his neck, biting down hard on the soft flesh and making John cry out. The hand that he wasn’t using to play with John’s cock was unbuttoning his shirt fervently, pushing it off of his shoulders when he had worked through all the small buttons. “I’m giving you the kind of attention that you can’t get anywhere else. Even if you wanted to.”

John tried to ask what exactly Sherlock meant by that, but when he felt Sherlock pull his zip down and reach inside his pants to cup at the bare flesh of his cock, he couldn’t think straight any longer.

And then, suddenly, Sherlock’s mouth was no longer pressing against his own, and Sherlock’s body was no longer pressing against his body. He opened his eyes to see where the other man had gone, and his gaze travelled downwards, to see the tall brunette man crouched on his knees on the floor, Sherlock’s large hands yanking his trousers and pants down to pool around his ankles, leaving his erect dick uncovered and exposed.

There was hardly any time to even enjoy the sight of Sherlock on his knees in front of him. The brunette man wasted no time at all taking John into his mouth, as far as he could, and John groaned loudly and felt his head fall back to hit against the wall he was leaning on, his hands coming up to tangle in Sherlock’s long, dark hair.

“God, Sherlock. _Fuck!_ ”

His lover’s mouth felt so amazing, cutting through the drunken haze that had settled over his mind and leaving him increasingly sober.

Sherlock worked over his cock feverishly, with a sort of vigor and desperation that turned John on more than the feel of the man’s mouth on him. When he looked back down the length of his body and to Sherlock, he saw that the brunette had opened the fly of his own trousers, and he was rubbing himself off as he sucked on John’s cock.

“Sherlock, you’re—” his words trailed off once again because he couldn’t think of anything that could describe the other man at that moment, looking so sexy as he touched himself and took John’s dick so deep into his mouth that he gagged slightly on it.

And then, suddenly, the wonderful heat of Sherlock’s mouth left, and all that remained was the incessant tug of Sherlock’s hands on his hips, pulling the blonde man towards him and pushing him down to the floor, so that John was lying on the hard wood and Sherlock was maneuvering himself on top of him.

“Sherlock?” he asked, confused. This wasn’t going to be comfortable, for either of them. They hadn’t had sex on the floor in years, since they had first started fucking, when the excitement and the urgency that they had felt between them in the beginning of the relationship had begun to die out.

But the brunette man didn’t say anything; he simply divested himself of all of his clothes quickly, and crawled over John’s prone form carefully, working around his large belly, positioning himself above John’s cock and lining up his entrance with a practiced hand.

“Sherlock, wait,” John said, raising his hands to stop Sherlock’s movements. The man hadn’t even prepared himself. He didn’t want Sherlock to hurt—

But his thought was cut off with a groan as Sherlock ignored his request and sank slowly down onto John’s cock, impaling himself. John couldn’t believe how good the tight heat felt. It seemed that even a little stretching was a world of difference. His breath came in ragged puffs and he could do nothing but lay there on the floor, naked, as Sherlock began a steady movement and fucked himself on John’s cock.

The floor beneath him was hard and unforgiving, and the thought crossed his mind distractedly that he wasn’t as young as he once had been, and he would probably end up paying for this romp tomorrow, but he couldn’t even begin to think about telling Sherlock to stop. Not when the man felt so good wrapped around him, so tight and so hot and so wet.

He opened his eyes and looked down the length of his body, unable to control the loud moan that tore from his throat at the sight that met his eyes. Sherlock was moving desperately over him, rocking his hips with an abandon that John had rarely seen in him. His own cock was stiff and leaking precum in sticky globs that ran down the underside of his dick as it jutted out from his body, and his belly seemed so round from John’s point of view, large and delicate, and John couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of it.

“Touch me, John,” he heard Sherlock’s voice say above him, ragged and broken. “Make me cum.”

John did as he was told and lifted a hand to squeeze Sherlock’s cock, using the man’s precum to lubricate his palm and make Sherlock glide effortlessly against his grasp. He hardly even had to move his hand; the snap of Sherlock’s hips above him was enough to push the brunette man’s hard cock into and out of the tight ring of his fingers.

“Yes,” Sherlock hissed, throwing his head back, and John closed his eyes against the sight above him, afraid that it would send him over the edge. He didn’t want to finish so soon. He wanted to stay like this forever, inside of Sherlock’s tight heat, fucking him endlessly.

But just then, Sherlock decided to cum with a hoarse whimper, shooting sticky spurts of liquid out to cover John’s chest, neck and even a bit of his cheek. At the feel of Sherlock’s semen on his face, John lost all control of himself, and his hips bucked up to meet with Sherlock’s downward thrusts, driving his cock deeper into the man on top of him and finally sending him over the edge.

As Sherlock’s orgasm washed over him, he stayed sitting on top of John, his head coming forward to rest against John’s, panting harshly. John could feel himself softening inside of Sherlock, but neither man moved, letting John’s semen leak out of Sherlock’s used hole, making a mess of both of them.

“God, Sherlock,” he panted, completely sober now and intensely out of breath. “That was amazing.”

On top of him, Sherlock sat up slightly, and brought a hand up to wipe at the streaks of semen that were on John’s cheek. He had a peculiar look on his face, one that John couldn’t quite place.

“I—I love you, John,” he murmured softly, so low that John almost couldn’t hear him. “I’m sorry if…”

John frowned at him, suddenly remembering their argument and dismissing it just as quickly. He reached out to bring Sherlock back down towards him, hugging him tightly and loving the feel of Sherlock’s belly pressing against his own stomach between them.

“Forget it, Sherlock. You don’t have to apologize.” He ran his hands through Sherlock’s hair and held on to the man tightly, wishing they could stay just as they were forever. “I’m sorry. And I…I love you, too.”

X.X.X

A/N: Next chapter, ‘Masterpiece Theater II’.


	6. Masterpiece Theater II

A/N: Sorry for the erractic posting.  The spouse and I are closing on a house and I've been trying to get some writing done for another story of mine.  Big thanks go out to my beta, Jenamy, who is ever so patient and kind and awesome!  Oh, and I guess I should have mentioned before that this story is not Brit-picked.  I try my hardest to not make it noticeable, but sometimes I feel as though I get my terminology wrong.  If anyone has any suggestions or comments, please feel free to let me know.  Thanks.  Also, still looking for a beta for the second half of this story and some other stuff I have in the works, if anyone is interested!

Warnings for this chapter: Some unkind uses of a derogatory term for a homosexual.  I personally hate that word, so I’m sorry if it offends anyone—I used it simply for dramatic effect, and it made me feel icky inside :(

X.X.X

John had been right about one thing: his whole body ached for days after his little tryst with Sherlock on the living room floor, and he was horrified to see dark, almost bruise-like love bites forming on his neck from where Sherlock had bitten him—a few in places that the stiff collars of his button-down shirts couldn’t even hide.

“You did a good job of staking your claim,” he said through his reflection in the living room mirror over the mantelpiece the next afternoon, the comment directed at Sherlock as the brunette man sat idly in John’s red chair, long legs folded ridiculously against his lumpy body as he tried to squeeze his considerable height into the plush cushions.  He was still in his pajamas from that morning when John had left to go to work.

The doctor grimaced at his own reflection in the mirror as he thought about the day he had spent in the office, patients ogling the hickeys on his neck and grinning cheekily at him.  It had been unprofessional, to say the least.

“I wouldn’t have had to do it if certain people could keep their hands to themselves,” Sherlock said distractedly, not even bothering to grace John with a look.  His gaze was instead intent on the telly, and the late afternoon soap opera that was just finishing up.

John hadn’t said anything about what had transpired with Lestrade the previous night, and Sherlock hadn’t asked.  They both simply skirted the issue and did their best to ignore it—except for Sherlock’s immature need to show the world that John was seemingly taken.

“Had a productive day, I see,” John said in lieu of keeping to the previous line of conversation.  He didn’t want to talk about it anymore than Sherlock wanted to hear about it, he was sure.  So instead, he focused his attention on the almost-empty bag of crisps on the side table next to his chair, and the mess of crumbs that were all over Sherlock’s t-shirt and the floor beneath him.

“Could have been better,” Sherlock answered with a dismissive shrug.  “There were no cases.”

“I can see that,” John sighed, beginning to pick up the mess around Sherlock while the man continued to sit in John’s chair quietly, staring at the tv.

“Can I ask why you’ve decided to commandeer my seat?” John questioned as he took his handfuls of garbage to the kitchen to throw them in the rubbish bin—which was near to overflowing, he noted, since he hadn’t taken the trash out in a few days and there was no one else who would do it—and then walking back into the living room, hands on his hips.  He had had a long day at work and all that he wanted now was to sit in his chair and finish reading the paper he hadn’t had the chance to pick back up again from that morning.

“Yours is more comfortable,” Sherlock answered simply, reaching a hand out mechanically to grab a crisp off of the side table.  Only when his hand grasped thin air did he pull his gaze away from the telly, staring down at the empty space where his snack had been and then frowning up at John.

The blonde man gave him a stern look.  “Sherlock, your chair is perfectly fine,” he prompted, hoping the brunette man would get the hint—he didn’t necessarily want to be the jerk that kicked a pregnant man out of his seat, but he was quickly becoming more and more okay with the idea.

Instead, Sherlock stared rebelliously up at him.  “It hurts my back,” he stated simply.

John rolled his eyes at the man.  “Everything hurts your back.”

“Your chair doesn’t.”

“Fine!” John yelled out, throwing his hands up in the air in defeat.  “Keep the damned chair!  I’ll just sit in yours I guess.” 

He stomped over to Sherlock’s dark gray leather seat and flopped down into it tiredly, sighing in exasperation as he saw Sherlock smirk in triumph out of the corner of his eye and turn back to the tv.  John fidgeted against the unfamiliar cushions and picked up his paper, moving uncomfortably in the chair to try to find a better position, but the lumbar support was all wrong, and he felt what he thought was a cushion spring poking irritatingly into his arse.

“You need a new chair,” John finally acquiesced into the silence of the living room.

“Thanks, but I’ve already got one,” Sherlock answered uninterestedly.

John opened his mouth to issue his own retort but thought better of it—it had been too long of a day and he just wanted to sit back and relax…as well as he could.

Silence settled over the room for a long moment, broken only by the low drone of the tv and the soft noises of newspaper pages turning.  John was almost to the end of periodical—and more than happy to note that there was not even the smallest mention of Sherlock Holmes in conjunction with a piece on the Synathida protests that were still happening in the area—when suddenly Sherlock jumped in his seat across the coffee table from John, sitting up quickly and bringing a hand up to touch his belly.

“John, I felt him move,” he told the man.

John put his paper down on the coffee table, interested.  “Are you sure, Sherlock?  Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

The brunette gave him a very Sherlockian look.  “This isn’t something as stupid as gas, John,” he bit out, bitterly, as if offended that John could think he was mistaken.  “He moved; I know he did.”

“Oh,” John said, simply, because he didn’t really know what else to say.  He stared at Sherlock as the man continued to sit up in the red chair, his hand sweeping over his belly slowly and his fingers prodding softly into the skin of his stomach. 

John fidgeted in Sherlock’s chair, suddenly unsure of what to do.  He wanted to ask the other man if he could…but Sherlock would probably only glare at him and say something biting, most likely about how John was ruining his chance to collect valuable information for his data by wasting Sherlock’s time trying to feel the baby for himself.

But then, Sherlock’s voice suddenly rang out in the growing stillness between them, soft and low and cautious.  “Do you want to feel?”

John couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on his lips.  He quickly got up from Sherlock’s chair and moved to sit on the arm of the red seat, next to the brunette man.  He placed a hand softly on Sherlock’s rounded belly and let the other man grasp it and move it over his skin, trying to find the spot where he had felt the movement. 

But after a few minutes of staying completely still and solemnly quiet, John—disappointingly—couldn’t feel anything. 

“If it’s only the first time it’s happened, then I probably won’t be able to feel it,” he said to Sherlock, reluctantly removing his hand and sitting up in a more comfortable position.  “It will still be at least a week or two before the movements are big enough that other people can feel them.”

Sherlock didn’t answer him, only continued rubbing his hands over his belly, searching for the movement still, as if needing to feel it again to know that it had been real.  The tv continued to quietly drone on in the corner of the room, forgotten now.

“So,” John said, clearing his throat and moving off of the armrest, heading back towards Sherlock’s chair.  When he sat down on it, he stayed on the very edge of the seat, not reclining back into the uncomfortable cushions.  He would have to remember to throw out the couch as soon as he could.  “Now that we know the sex, should we begin discussing names?”

He only had half of Sherlock’s attention, he could tell, but he would take what he could get. 

“I guess we’ll need to talk about names, won’t we?” the brunette man agreed, his hand finally giving up the search and moving away from his stomach.  He curled back into himself on the chair and stared at John from across the coffee table.  “Any ideas?”

“How about Hamish?” John said quickly.

Sherlock simply raised a single, thick eyebrow at the suggestion.  “John, seriously.”

“I _am_ being serious, Sherlock,” John said bitterly, frowning.  “It’s a family name, and I’d kind of like to keep it going.”

“No,” Sherlock said shortly, with a simple shake of his shagging head.

“ ‘No’?” John repeated.  “Is that it, then?  You won’t even discuss it anymore?”

Sherlock rolled crystalline eyes at the man sitting across from him, sighing in resignation.  “That was a bit inconsiderate of me, wasn’t it?” he asked suddenly, and John was so taken aback by those particular words coming out of Sherlock’s mouth that he didn’t even stop to hear the light sarcasm behind them.  “How about we say that it’s a good suggestion, and I’ll consider it.”  There was a moment of incredulous silence as John stared at Sherlock in disbelief.  And Sherlock took advantage of that opportunity to smile charmingly at him and continue, “But still, no.”

“Fine,” John said, glowering at the other man.  “What do _you_ think, then?”  He made the question sound ruder than it should have been, and crossed his arms over his chest childishly.

Sherlock wasted no time in offering up his own suggestion.  “Dailus.”

“No,” John responded.  And then he suggested, “Jackson.”

“Veto,” Sherlock answered, shaking his head.  “Alexavier.”

“Yeah, right.  Edward.”

“Hardly,” Sherlock said with a scoff and a frown.  Then, “Caulton.”

“No,” John replied with a shake of his own head.  “Henry.”

“Not a chance.  Aloysius.”

“Alohicious?” John repeated, surprised at Sherlock’s taste in children’s names.  He knew that ‘Mycroft’ and ‘Sherlock’ were not nearly as common as they had been in the 1800’s maybe, but there was a limit to the embarrassment that he would make his son suffer through in the poor child’s lifetime.  “I don’t want to name him anything that rhymes with ‘delicious’.” 

“Point taken,” Sherlock acquiesced with a grimace.  “What about Callum?”

“Callum…” John pondered the name, rolled it around in his mouth a few times to test the weight and feel of it.  “It’s a possibility.”

Sherlock gave a small nod of his head, in approval.  He brought his hands up to rest his fingers in a steeple in front of his mouth, in what John liked to teasingly call his ‘thinking face’.  “Callum Watson,” he repeated lowly, a far off look in his eyes.

At the name, John frowned.  “Wait a second,” he said quickly.  “Why Watson?  Why not Holmes?”

Sherlock gave him a blank stare.  “I thought that would be obvious, John,” he responded slowly, as if talking to a child, “what with my line of work and the enemies that I’ve made because of it.”

John sat forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees so that he could lean as close to the other man as he could from across the living room.  “Sherlock, I want our son to have your name,” he stated, a hard set to his lips that he hoped Sherlock would know meant he wasn’t going to budge on this one.

“And I want the same, John,” the brunette man responded, looking less perturbed at the idea of their son not having his name than John was.

“Fine.”  If that was the case, then there was a very simple solution.  “Watson Holmes, then,” he said simply.

“Hyphenated?”

John shook his head.  “No, two separate names.”

Sherlock’s own head shook in response to John’s statement.  “Not going to happen,” he said, voice hard and uncompromising.

“Why?” John asked, exasperated.  He was beginning to get more than a little frustrated with dealing with Sherlock’s ever-changing double standards.  “You just said you wanted—”

“If the names aren’t hyphenated, then people will inevitably begin dropping the first surname and just calling him by the last one that appears on his paperwork—he’ll end up being just Holmes,” Sherlock answered, sharply.  John, taken slightly aback by Sherlock’s sudden vehemence, simply sat in his uncomfortable little seat silently.

“How about Holmes Watson?” Sherlock gave in with a sigh, when he realized that he had startled John.

“You just argued my point,” John replied softly.  He was beginning to think that maybe discussing names so soon had been a bad idea, but they were in it now.  And then, as a last ditch effort before deciding to throw in the towel completely, he offered up, “Watson-Holmes.  Hyphenated.”

Sherlock didn’t immediately disagree with it, and John took that as a good sign.  The pregnant man stared at him for a long moment, silent, before simply stating, “I still don’t understand why my name can’t go first.”

_No outright rejection_ , John thought with an internal sigh and a small smile.  That was as close to an agreement as they would come, he guessed.  “You’re more a mother to him than I am, technically,” the doctor explained, careful with his words.  The last thing he wanted was for Sherlock to get in a snit over John calling him a woman.  “The mother’s surname goes last.”

Sherlock scoffed loudly.  “That’s not a real rule.”

“It used to be, in the past,” John argued.

“This is the 21st century, John.”

“I’m aware of that, Sherlock,” he said in exasperation, “but it doesn’t change the fact that I still think it should be Watson-Holmes.”

They stared at each other coldly from across the coffee table, both knowing that neither was going to give in and that they could spend hours like this if they let it continue—as they had done before in the past.

“We’ll discuss it again at a later date,” Sherlock said suddenly, with some finality in his voice as he turned his attention back to the television that had been quietly going on in the corner of the room during their discussions, putting an end to the debate.

“Yes,” John agreed, picking his newspaper back up and opening it with a snap of paper to the page where he had left off.  “We will.”

Xxx

He began to feel the baby’s movements more and more after it had happened that first time, during the end of his 21st week.  He told John each time he felt the tiny flutter of movement, but the doctor had not yet been able to feel it for himself, more than a week and half after Sherlock had first announced that he had felt something.

And while John consoled him after each fruitless venture to feel the baby, not really understanding why Sherlock got so disappointed, the brunette man couldn’t help the frustration that continued to grow the longer John went without feeling what he was feeling.

It just seemed unfair to Sherlock that he could feel the baby when John could not.  John was entitled to feel the intimate, wonderful flutter of life inside of him just as much as Sherlock was.  It was his child, too.

But instead of explaining this to John—because he knew that the man wouldn’t understand—he simply bit his tongue, and made John spend hours trying to feel the small movements through the skin of his abdomen.

As a cold gust of wind suddenly blew towards him, he shivered and hunched his shoulders, huddling into himself.  With winter fast approaching, he was thankful for one thing, at least: the colder weather meant he could wear his long overcoat, and that combined with a thick scarf worked wonders to hide his growing belly while he was out on the street, among strangers—as he was at the moment—making it harder to see that he was pregnant.  He tended to get less attention on days when it was cold enough to don his winter gear, and not just a blazer or suit jacket.

Of course that didn’t stop the people who knew from the blog or case-related media broadcasts that he was Sherlock Holmes, and knew that Sherlock Holmes was pregnant at the moment.  But those seemed to be thankfully few and far between.

He had just left Bart’s, having spent the whole day in the morgue with Molly, dissecting a corpse, and wanted to stop by a pastry shop that was only a few blocks over to pick up a sweet before catching a cab back to Baker Street.  As the wind continued to blow around him, he thought that maybe it would have been better if he had just gone straight home, but a sudden voice shouting out cut off his train of thought.

“Oy, you!  Hey, I’m talkin’ to you!”

Out of curiosity, Sherlock turned towards the source of the voice, and was surprised to find a group of 3 men walking towards him, two of them middle-aged and one a bit younger, maybe in his early 20’s.  One of the older men was larger than his other 2 friends, with a gold cross necklace hanging gaudily from his neck and a few missing teeth.  The second man wasn’t as big as his friend but he was more intimidating looking.  He was bald headed and covered in tattoos from what Sherlock could see through the man’s coat—the top of his neck and the bottoms of his wrists were all dark with ink.

“You’re Sherlock Holmes, ain’t ya’?  I knew I recognized ‘ya,” the bald headed man said to him, a bit too companionably for Sherlock’s taste.

“I think you have me mistaken for someone else,” Sherlock told him politely, making to turn away from the small group and continue on his way.  He had been confronted by so many strangers lately that he could tell with just one look which ones were going to offer comforting, encouraging words and which ones were going to curse at him and throw things.

And one glance at this group of men had Sherlock’s stomach sinking to his feet.

He turned on his heel and tried to walk away from the 3 of them, but one man reached out to grab at his shoulder roughly, the force of the hand so great that it stopped him and turned him around slightly to face the group again.

“No need to be rude, boy—we’re just talkin’,” the larger man said, his grip crushing down on Sherlock’s shoulder painfully.

Sherlock raised a hand of his own to try and throw the man’s grasp off, but the movement pulled his overcoat open slightly, and Sherlock saw their eyes trail down to his stomach with an inward curse.

No hiding it, now.

“I think you’re exactly who we think you are,” the bald headed man said, a sick smile forming on his chapped and cracked lips.

And before Sherlock had time to react—to even think—all three of them grabbed him about the arms and pushed him into the entry way of an alley a few feet from where he had been standing on the sidewalk.  Once out of the direct line of sight from the people walking out on the street, one of the men took the opportunity to hit him over the head with a thin metal pole that he had pulled out from the waistband of his trousers while the other two held him still, rendering him speechless and barely conscious in the few precious moments when he could have still called out for help while he was in hearing distance of someone.

He lost his balance quickly after the hit, his eyesight going dark and fuzzy for a long moment, but the two men who still held his arms down while the third had whacked him were holding him up, dragging him down the alley.  He felt them take a few turns as they continued pulling him along, but there was a ringing in his ears that was throwing off his equilibrium and an intense pain radiating from the spot on his head where he had been hit that was making it impossible to think clearly.

When the men dragging him down the alley finally stopped walking, they pushed him away roughly, making him stumble into a brick wall.  His outstretched hands softened the blow of falling against the stones as most of the shock was absorbed into his wrists.  Thankfully, they gave him a few seconds to shake the worst of the dizziness and disconcertion off now that he was finally still, with a solid, unmoving wall on which to ground himself against.

“We just wanted to talk to you, boy,” one of them was saying, his tone meant to imply that it was Sherlock’s own fault that he was in this mess now.  “Don’t know why you had to make a big deal out of it.”

Sherlock’s breath came in heavy gasps as his heart pounded furiously in his chest.  When his eyesight began to clear, he looked around himself, but could see nothing that could define where he was, or which direction the street was in.  He was at the cross section of two alleyways, the backstreets forming a ‘T’ and there were three directions in which he could try to go, but the men surrounded him as he leaned up against the wall behind him and he doubted he could outrun the younger, more spry-looking one in the group with the extra weight of his belly to contend with and the lingering dizziness of the blow to his head still disconcerting him slightly.

“Yeah,” the other older man said.  “Just wanted to talk to you about certain choices you’ve made in your life, and how we think they ain’t right.”

Sherlock looked at each man in turn, the focus helping to wipe away the last visages of the fuzziness that made his eyes swim.  In each face he saw anger and disgust and a sort of maniacal glee, and he knew with a growing fear that he wasn’t going to get out of this one with just luck.  These men meant business, whatever it was, and he knew just by looking at them that they weren’t about to chicken out and change their minds.

He would have been scared—he would have been terrified beyond belief—of what these 3 men planned to do to him, if not for one thing.

One small thing, tucked secretly away in the waistband at the back of his trousers.

John’s .44 caliber Browning was a comforting weight pressing into the small of his back, but he wasn’t stupid—he knew he wouldn’t pull it out until he had no other option, if things even went that far.  He doubted they would, but he was beginning to realize that he was underestimating a lot of things in his life nowadays. 

The one thing he would not underestimate, though, was his safety.

He had started carrying the gun around after the first few newspaper articles had come out and people had begun stopping him in the middle of the streets as he walked down sidewalks, cussing him, cursing him, and throwing things at him.  He had had an uncomfortable sort of feeling growing in the pit of his stomach lately, ever since the newspapers had started printing their stories, and he had thought it prudent to be prepared for any event.

He hadn’t said anything to John about it, though, and the doctor hadn’t even noticed that one of his hand guns had gone missing in the mess of the fireproof safe that Sherlock had turned it into, with piles of notebooks and all of his pregnancy-related papers shoved carelessly into the small metal box.

But the men surrounding him didn’t seem concerned at his lack of fear, if they noticed it at all.  Sherlock would have bet money that they didn’t—so absorbed in themselves they were. 

The man to his left, the shorter, tattooed one, spoke again, his voice rough from years of cigarettes and hard drink, and Sherlock could smell the alcohol coming off of him even now, with the wind whipping around them.  “So you like getting buggered, do you boy?” the man asked, a sick grin forming on his lips.  “We can make you real happy, then.  Can’t we fellas?”

Sherlock’s heart jumped into his throat and his mouth filled with bile at the thought of what these men could do to him, here in these back alleys where no one would see.  “Stay away from me,” he said, loudly and, despite the gun that he knew he could draw at any moment, his voice still shook slightly as trembles wracked his body from the cold wind blowing around him and the sudden terror at hearing the man’s words.

“What’s wrong?” the tattooed man’s older friend said mockingly, chuckling darkly.  “We just wanna play wich’ ‘ou a bit.”  Sherlock could smell the alcohol coming off of him, too, and he watched the men carefully as they inched their way closer to him.

As they continued to move in, closing ranks around him and he could no longer stand the restraint of holding himself back, he reached behind him, into his overcoat and under the back of his blazer and pulled out the Browning, raising it up with one arm extended and his empty hand coming up to steady the grip of the gun.  He lined up the sights on the closest man’s head, keeping both of his eyes open and squaring his stance, intent on shooting if any of them came any closer.

The sight of the gun made them all stop in their tracks, eyes wide.

“If any of you take one more step closer, I swear to God that I will blow each and every one of your fucking heads off, so I suggest that you _back the fuck up_!  Now!”

His voice shook slightly but the hands holding tightly to the gun were steady, and the firearm didn’t move in the slightest.  A sudden, dull thumping began to beat distantly inside his belly, feeling strange and slightly perturbing, and he dropped one of his hands from the gun, placing it soothingly on his abdomen outside of his jacket but keeping his eyes on the men surrounding him and making sure the firearm stayed steady.  Beneath his hand, he could feel the baby fluttering back and forth inside of him, responding to the adrenaline and the increase of blood flow as his heart hammered away in his chest.  The quick, incessant movements were making him slightly nauseous and disconcerted, and he wished the baby would settle down for just a second so that he could concentrate fully on what he was doing, but he knew that he would get no such luxury.

After the initial shock of being drawn on wore off—thanks to the alcohol, Sherlock was sure—the tattooed man’s smile grew once more, even more sickening now than it was before.  “Oh, look boys,” he told his friends sardonically, with a scornful chuckle.  “The faggot thinks he can protect himself from us.  He’s gonna be real upset with himself when he realizes that he can’t.”

The other two men chuckled darkly as well and without another thought Sherlock cocked the gun, pulling the barrel back and moving a round into the chamber with the loud, decisive _clink_ of metal on metal. 

“I have killed greater men than you for far less,” he told them, the only warning they would get from him, and his voice was hard and cold, forehead furrowed deeply in concentration and stance tense against the kickback that he was preparing himself for.  “Your life means nothing to me.  It is as irrelevant as that bug crawling across the ground there.  An inconsequential blip on the radar of humanity and not worth my time to think about at all.”  He shook his head slightly, but kept his eyes on the sights.  “Don’t make me show you just how insignificant you are to me.”

The tall man laughed at him then, a hearty sound that seemed genuine, with no trace of fear.  “I like these little fag boys when they fight,” he said to his friends.  “Makes ‘em clench up in all the right places.”

And then he lunged forward towards Sherlock suddenly, and the pregnant man was caught only slightly off guard by the fact that he hadn’t thought they would be stupid enough to actually try to attack him with a gun pointed at their heads.

But the slight surprise was just enough to throw off his aim slightly, and he was unused to shooting this particular gun.  The shot rang out loudly in the narrow alley and strayed to the right of the man, hitting the brick wall behind him and imbedding the bullet into it with a puff of dust, missing the man by only an inch or two.

Sherlock’s second and third shots, though, were much better.  Adapting to the unfamiliar weight and pull of the gun quickly, he aimed again and shot at the man that he had missed before, catching him squarely in the chest this time and knocking him to the ground with a painful scream.  The third shot caught the tattooed man in the stomach, and the younger boy, who had not spoken at all during the ordeal, watched fearfully as his two friends were gunned down in front of his eyes, and he stopped moving towards Sherlock.  He stared at the brunette man for a long, quiet moment, eyes glued to the barrel of the gun that was pointing straight at his face.

Sherlock was slightly disappointed that he couldn’t be justified in shooting him as well, as he turned straight around and ran out of the alley, leaving his friends behind with Sherlock and a handful of bullets left in the magazine.

He knew that it wasn’t going to be long before someone on the nearest street to them called the police after hearing the gunfire, and a part of him mourned the fact that he wouldn’t have enough time with the two wounded men lying on the ground before him as he would like.

His icy gaze turned down to the ground beneath his feet, and he watched as his shiny black leather shoes carried him to the nearest body, the tall man whose gold cross necklace stood out glaringly against his dark clothing.  The one that Sherlock had shot in the chest.

He used to bottom of his shoe to turn the man over, not wanting to get blood on the expensive leather. 

The man rolled over complacently, no sound coming out of his slack mouth.  His brown eyes stared up at Sherlock sightlessly, unblinking, and Sherlock took a moment to stare at the man’s dead body in sick satisfaction.

Not far from the body, the other man was writhing on the ground, moaning lowly and clutching at his stomach.  The front of his jumper was heavy and wet with dark blood underneath his coat, and his hands were stained red with it.  Somewhat reluctantly, Sherlock left the side of the dead man and made his way carefully over the corpse, coming to stand above the second man and staring down at him silently.

When the man became aware of Sherlock looming over him, he looked up at the brunette man and spat blood towards him, baring his teeth at Sherlock in pain and intimidation.  “You fucker,” the man gasped out, fingers clutching at his stomach convulsively as large shivers wracked his body.  “You’re going to burn in hell for your sins, faggot.  You and that bastard child of yours.”

Sherlock suddenly lost the inclination to keep his shoes clean.  One foot lifted up and came to rest gently on the man’s stomach as he gasped and tried to push Sherlock’s leg away uselessly.  But Sherlock only stepped down on the man’s abdomen, watching as he screamed out in pain and more blood oozed forth from the bullet wound.  The man’s jumper was so saturated with the red liquid that the new blood simply rolled off of the material, pooling straight on the ground below them. 

“You’ll get there long before I do,” Sherlock told him coldly, giving him a swift kick in the stomach before taking his time to point the gun at the man’s head while he screamed and cried out in pain, finally pulling the trigger with a loud bang that brought a deafening, satisfying silence into the alley.

Xxx

He sat in the back of the ambulance, on the tailgate because he would not allow them to put him onto the gurney and be pushed completely into the truck.  He had given in to the stupid, useless blanket that they had wanted to put over him—what _was_ the deal with them and their blankets, anyways?—because John had looked as though he might explode if Sherlock didn’t let one of the paramedics tend to him, but he was not happy about it.  In front of him, standing out in the middle of the street and being washed in the spinning red and blue lights of the ambulance, John and Lestrade stood before him, both agitated and on-edge—though John was understandably more so than the detective inspector—and they argued with each other back and forth, seeming to forget that Sherlock was supposed to be ‘trying to relax’ right next to them.

“I thought that they were just gathering protest rallies,” John was shouting out, forehead furrowed in furious lines.  “They can’t just start yanking people off of the street, abducting them and beating them!  That’s what terrorists do; psychopaths.  Not protesters!”

“Well, you’re bound to have a few loose cannons in every batch, John,” Lestrade retorted back.  He appeared to be taking personal offense to the fact that John irrationally seemed to be blaming him for the whole ordeal.  “You know that.”

“Everyone said that they were keeping to themselves, that we didn’t have to worry about them,” John stressed angrily.

“We underestimated them, John,” Lestrade tried to explain to the doctor.  “But it’s not going to happen again.  I promise you.  We are going to try harder to keep Sherlock, and every other male who has taken the pill or wants to take the pill, safe.  Okay?”  Sherlock knew his words were meant to be soothing, but he doubted that John took them as such.

True to form, the blonde doctor only stared up at Lestrade through angry eyebrows and a stern jaw.  “And what about the other one?” he asked the detective inspector, crossing his arms over his chest.  “The one that Sherlock said got away?  What are you going to do about him?”

Lestrade sighed and rubbed a hand over his unshaven jaw.  “I can put out a warrant for his arrest.”  He pointed to the brunette sitting between them by their legs and continued.  “If Sherlock can describe him to a sketch artist, we can find him.” And then he turned to the pregnant man, and Sherlock could tell by the set of his mouth that he wasn’t going to like what the detective said next.  “But, Sherlock, you have to understand that you are illegally carrying a handgun.  I have to confiscate it and write it up.”

To his surprise, he didn’t get the chance to tell Lestrade how ridiculous that was.  John beat him to it.

“Greg, this is absurd!” the blonde man shouted out, throwing his hands up in exasperation and huffing at the incongruity of the situation, turning away from the detective as if he couldn’t even stand to look at him anymore.  “Sherlock didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, turning back around suddenly to face Lestrade with the ferocity of a man who knows he is in the right.  “And now you’re going to take away the only thing he has to defend himself with, since you idiots aren’t doing your jobs!”

“John, my hands are tied!” Lestrade exclaimed, at a loss.  “You know the laws as well as I do, and Sherlock knows them even better.  I’m sorry that you boys are having a hard time of this—really, John, you _know_ that I am—but I can’t let you walk around my streets doing something illegal.”

With his rant done he squared himself up, going into formal Detective Inspector mode and turned to Sherlock, who had been sitting on the edge of the ambulance truck floor, content to let John say everything that he was thinking. 

“Now, the gun,” he said to the brunette man, his voice gone hard and serious.  “Sherlock—hand it over.”

There was no use fighting the detective—he would get it one way or the other, and Sherlock knew that Lestrade wouldn’t be above throwing him in lockup for the crime of illegally possessing a handgun.  Not when he was trying to prove to the public that he was going to make the streets a safer place after this incident.

He didn’t make a sound as he reached behind him to pull the gun out from the spot that he had replaced it at.  He had no words for the disgust and anger and fear he felt at having to give up his only means of protecting himself.  When Lestrade took the gun from him, lifting the heavy Browning out of his large hand, he felt suddenly empty and exposed, and he unconsciously wrapped the blanket a little tighter around himself, hoping no one noticed.

“There,” John said acridly once Lestrade had confiscated the gun and put it into an evidence bag that he pulled out from his jacket pocket.  “Are you happy now?  Feel like you’ve done a good day’s work?”

“John, don’t make me out to be the bad guy,” Lestrade complained.  “We both know that I don’t want to make this even harder on you.  I—” he trailed off, and Sherlock could have sworn that he was blushing slightly, but it could have been the red filtered light shining down on his face from the ambulance siren above them.

After a moment of slightly awkward silence, John simply sighed tiredly.  “Can we go home now, Greg?” he asked quietly.  “I want to get Sherlock in bed.”

“Yeah, John,” Lestrade agreed, nodding his head and reaching out to place a comforting, friendly hand on John’s tense shoulder.  “You can go.  Just bring him by the yard tomorrow as soon as you can, so we can get the sketch artist to talk to him.”

The cab ride back to Baker Street was silent and tense.  They didn’t talk because they had no idea what the cabbie would think of their discussion—and they had been kicked out of cabs before by drivers who ‘didn’t want any of that’ inside their cars.  It seemed like the Synathida was showing everyone’s true colors, even people as inconsequential as cab drivers and the woman who sold Sherlock his mid-morning tea.

And, honestly, he was unsure of how much more he could take.

When they got to Baker Street, John let Sherlock go inside while he took care of paying for the taxi.  As the brunette man climbed the stairs tiredly, he became aware of a deep penetrating soreness that was slowly stealing over his entire body, probably from the uncontrollable trembles that had wracked his body and the tenseness that being terrified brought into his muscles.

He walked into their flat mindlessly, heading straight for their bedroom without a second thought and falling into the bed, relaxing back into the pillows and trying not to think about how close he had come to not being able to come home tonight at all.

Through his closed eyelids he heard John ascend the stairs and come into the room, closing the door softly behind himself.  There was a rustle and scrape of metal rubbing softly against metal coming from one corner of the room, and then the unmistakable sound of their little safe being opened silently, the heavy locks rubbing against one another.

At that, Sherlock opened his eyes and looked across the room at John.  The doctor was bending down, hunched over as he tried to reach deep inside the safe, rummaging through all of the loose papers and the thick notebooks, not emerging again until he pulled out two guns, one in each hand.

With his items in tow, he bumped the safe door closed with his leg, and turned the knob to lock it with the tip of his brown leather shoe, then he made his way over to Sherlock as he lay on the bed, staring at the doctor in curiosity.

When John reached him, the doctor waited until Sherlock sat up on the mattress with some difficulty, then handed the brunette one of the guns.  Sherlock could tell just by looking at the two firearms in John’s hands that one was a higher caliber, a service piece, and the other was simply a smaller, personal protection weapon, meant for concealed carry.

John held out the heavier issue military gun to Sherlock solemnly.  “You keep the .45.  I’ll take the .22.”

“John, what if you need—?”

John shook his head, cutting Sherlock off.  “I want you to have the .45, Sherlock,” he explained.  “A .22 can do just as much damage, if you know where to aim.  You may need this more than I will in the next few months.”

Sherlock took the gun out of his hand and examined it.  It was the one that John usually carried with them on cases, and Sherlock was used to shooting it.  He ran his large hands over the cold metal of the firearm.  “Lestrade is not going to be happy when he finds out that he took away one of our weapons, just to have you replace it with two,” he chuckled softly.

“Lestrade can go fuck himself,” John answered sharply.  “I’m done thinking we are going to be safe if we just lie low.”

Sherlock sighed softly and reached over to place the gun on his bedside table, in a comforting close range.  “You’re blaming yourself,” he said when his hands were empty, and he had turned back to John to see the other man staring at him, blonde hair looking decidedly a bit more gray around the edges than it used to be.  Sherlock’s words weren’t a question; they were a statement of the obvious.  Sherlock wasn’t saying it to be keen or clever; he was saying it so that John would know that he knew what the blonde man was thinking.

“Of course I’m blaming myself,” John responded, knowing it was pointless to try to hide it from the deductive thinker.  “I wasn’t there, Sherlock.  I told you I would keep you safe, and I didn’t.  I’m sorry.”

“It’s hardly your fault, John,” Sherlock tried to reason with him, but John was having none of it.  He began to pace the bedroom floor by Sherlock’s side of the bed, agitated and angry.

“I made a promise, Sherlock, and I didn’t keep it,” John explained, his hands fluttering about wildly in his distress, the .22 still in his grasp.  “I don’t want to start off our baby’s life with me not able to keep promises to him.”

“You won’t, John,” the brunette man reassured, reaching out to stop John’s pacing when he came close to the bed, grasping the doctor’s arm softly and pulling John towards him.  “You’re here now, and that’s what really matters,” he said, lifting his arms to wrap them around John’s body, and he felt the tension begin to leave John as Sherlock held him close.  “I can take care of myself in the moment—I can shoot a gun and kill a man and keep myself safe.  But it’s afterwards that I need you, John, to hold me together and pick up the pieces.”

He tugged on John’s body in the circle of his arms, and was relieved when the doctor exhaled slowly and moved to climb into the bed with Sherlock, laying his own gun down next to the .45 on the bedside table and maneuvering around Sherlock until they were both lying comfortably on the mattress.

“I can do that,” John said as he kissed Sherlock, a soft kiss, full of promise and safety.  “For both of you.”  He trailed a line of kisses down Sherlock’s neck, to his chest over the brunette’s shirt and down farther still, over the mound of Sherlock’s belly.  He explored the man’s rounded abdomen for a long while, pressing hot, wet kisses along the top by his belly button, and further down to his lower abdomen, where the bottom of his stomach met his pubic bone. 

As Sherlock relaxed back into the mattress while John continued his ministrations, he felt the dull nudge of the baby kick against his side, close to the spot that John’s mouth was hovering over.

The blonde man quickly pulled his face away from Sherlock’s stomach and looked up at him, dark blue eyes wide with excitement and happiness.  “Sherlock, I felt him!” John exclaimed, a smile forming on his lips.

Sherlock smiled down the length of his body at his lover, content at last now that John was able to feel what he could. 

“See, John,” he whispered softly as he reached out to pull John’s face back towards his own and kiss him deeply on the lips.  “You could never disappoint him; he already knows you.”

Xxx

He lay awake in bed long after John began snoring softly next to him.  His fingers beat out an incessant melody on the mound of his belly and his thoughts chased themselves around his head, one not even complete before another came along after it.  When he could take it no longer, he pushed himself off of the bed and left the room quietly, his feet carrying him straight towards the lone window in the living room and the violin case that sat underneath it. 

He thought back to that night in Baskerville, after he had been down to Dewer’s Hollow with Henry Knight and had seen—what he had thought was at the time—the gigantic hound that had been stalking the poor, demented man.  He remembered the conversation he had had with John afterwards, at the inn, as he sat by the fire and shook and shook from his experience in the hollow.

He had been terrified that night.  Well and truly terrified.  He had been frightened so few times in his life that he could count them on one hand, even to this day.  At that time, not even John had known how to deal with Sherlock’s all too human reaction to what he had thought he had seen.  He had told John then that he had always been able to keep himself distant, to divorce himself from his feelings.  But he couldn’t that night.  The tremble of his hands as it had clutched desperately at the tumbler of scotch as he sat shaking in front of the fire of the inn had been testament to that fact.

And the next day, when he tried to apologize to John for dealing with the situation so poorly, he had also confessed that it wasn’t just the fear that unnerved him.  It was the doubt.

The doubt he had felt in himself.

Back then it was a self-doubt in his own senses, the things he had seen and heard on that previous night.  But this was worse.

Because this had him doubting him choices; his mind.

Had he made a bad decision, taking the Synathida and putting himself and John and their unborn child through all of this?

Had he—finally—bitten off more than he could chew?

Had he, Sherlock bloody Holmes, done the wrong thing, made the wrong choice, gone after the wrong puzzle?

He shook his head slightly to clear it of all of those stupid, unanswerable questions, opening up the instrument case carefully and running his hands in a gentle caress over what he found inside, laying on the red velvet.  He picked up his violin and strummed the bow gently across the strings, pulling a deep, rich sound out of it that immediately soothed him, settling the wild beating of his heart.  He let his fingers pick cautiously at the fender, pressing down on the thin strings and gliding down and up their length, the bow moving slowly back and forth in his other hand. 

His hands danced across the instrument and he pulled forth from the strings a few of the pieces he had been composing over the past several weeks.  Rich, complex movements that varied in sound, tempo and melody—each one telling a story through the notes of everything that he had been through over the past months.  One was slow and sad, describing through the melody a deep pain at John’s leaving, a great joy at his return.  Another was soft and soothing, meant as a lullaby and a promise that he was going to try his best to make everything perfect for his unborn child.  Yet another was reminiscent of the beat of a heart, staccato notes short and sharp and breathtaking to listen to.

And when he got to the end of those pieces, he took only a moment’s pause to feel, more than think about, the entrance to his next, as of yet un-started, movement.  Small fragments of the composition began to slowly come together in broken bits and perfect pieces, flowing from his fingertips and his body in crashing waves and he took his time putting everything together, letting the reverberating notes of one line die out into silence before starting a new harmony, pulling it all together with a slow tempo and strong sound.

As he played, he felt himself softly pulling apart, in this broken, beautiful mess that he had made.  And in the dead and quiet of the spaces between the music notes, he knew that he was slowly fading, deep into the masterpiece that he had made.

Xxx

When John heard the first notes of music being pulled from the violin, his heart sank.  Lately, whenever Sherlock picked up his instrument, he usually spent days composing a new piece.  Sometimes the music was light and cheery, but mostly it was deep and mournful, a slow melody that tugged at John’s heartstrings almost as much as the fact that Sherlock would crawl into himself again, not talking, barely eating, hardly resting.

He listened for a little while, because, much as he hated what the violin meant as far as Sherlock’s state of mind, the music was beautiful nonetheless.  Deep and rich and vibrating the very heartbeat in his chest.

He had always loved to hear Sherlock play.  It moved him in a way that he didn’t think someone like himself would ever comprehend; he was a military man after all, a doctor who had seen the worst kind of wounds in war, a soldier who had been wounded in the heat of action—not a man of art.  He knew blood and pain and hurt, not the more cultured things that Sherlock knew, like German and French and classical music and art.

In the blackness of the bedroom John listened with bated breath as he lie in bed, the spot beside him empty and cold.  The music echoed through the dark stillness of their flat, reverberating in the corners of the rooms and covering everything that it touched in a melancholy solitude.

This was something that belonged to Sherlock alone, and the notes of the violin echoed that knowledge.  John could never know the fear of what Sherlock was going through, the uncertainty and the expectation.

And yet, as he listened, the piece changed tempo, changed beat, and became something slightly sweeter, a new melody that held traces of the old, somber one, as if they were two strangers meeting and converging into something new and beautiful, wholly their own.

The music continued, changing again, and this time John’s breath caught in his chest as he heard it—the sound of his son’s heartbeat as he stood once again in that doctor’s office, staring at a bulky machine that showed the bean-shaped body of his baby in black and white squiggles on a large square screen, and in the quiet darkness of the bedroom he could feel Sherlock’s music cover him as fully and completely as the sound of his son’s heartbeat in that tiny exam room did that day, weeks ago.

With a smile, John realized that each movement of music Sherlock had created specifically to tell a different piece of their story.  The music that he spent hours on, all the time that he spent ignoring John in favor of his instrument, or when he sat next to John on the couch but looked like he was a million miles away, tapping a rhythm out on the armrest of the sofa…all of it had come together in this, what John was hearing right now.

And then a new piece was added, fast and tumultuous and bringing with it a fear of the next string of notes, an anticipation that made him feel confused and uncomfortable just listening to it.  He stood up from the bed, because he couldn’t stand to lie in it anymore, and his feet made their way out of the bedroom and into the living room of their own accord, stepping on the floorboards lightly to take him up behind Sherlock as the man stood facing the window of their living room.  If he was aware that John was suddenly behind him, he gave no sign of it, intent on finishing out the piece in a flurry of hard notes that trailed off in a heart stuttering vibrato.

Sherlock didn’t move until the last sound of the final note died out completely, and when he turned around John was surprised to see tears streaking down his pale cheeks, cresting over his high cheekbones and falling down the smooth expanse of skin.

“Sherlock,” John breathed, unsure of what to do, what to say to the man in front of him.

But Sherlock seemed as if he had spent the last amount of his energy trying to get the music out of his head and into his violin.  He looked tired now, worn down and slightly defeated.  His shoulders sagged as he brought his arms down to his sides, and he leaned forward towards John, his shaggy black head dropping down to John’s shoulder and the shorter man could do nothing but bring his arms up to encase Sherlock in his embrace and try not to stagger under the weight of Sherlock leaning heavily against him.

“I was frightened today, John,” he heard Sherlock whisper into his neck, the man’s lips rubbing softly against his skin as they moved to form the words.  “I still am.  God, I hope I did the right thing.”

And John knew he was in trouble then.  Sherlock had never put much stock in God, but the words that had just fallen from his lips sounded dangerously like a prayer.

His grip around Sherlock tightened, crushing the other man to him.  “They won’t hurt you anymore, Sherlock.  I promise.”  He was startled to hear small little sobs coming from the other man’s throat, and Sherlock pressed his face harder into John’s neck, trying to stifle the sounds.

“Shhh, it’s all right now,” John consoled him.  He had only ever heard Sherlock cry once before, on the phone with him as he stared up at the man he loved on the edge of that building and heard him tell him goodbye. 

John pushed those particular thoughts away; he didn’t want to think about them right now.  He didn’t want to think about them ever again.

“You’re safe here,” John soothed the man in his arms, and his hands came up to comb gently through Sherlock’s dark curls in a comforting manner.  “They may know what to do and what to say to make you scared, but this is your masterpiece, remember?  Yours.  They can’t take that away from you.”  He turned his head slightly so that he could place a kiss into Sherlock’s hair, inhaling the scent of his lover.  “Don’t let it tear you apart, Sherlock.  Don’t let them do this to you.”

After a moment, John heard Sherlock whispering, soft words that tore at John’s heart to hear said in the wet, broken baritone of his lover.  “If I burn out…I could just slip away.  Can I hide in you, John?” Sherlock asked, tightening his grip on John’s shoulders in a crushing hug.  “We can just stay here, safe, with each other.”

John held on to him just as tightly, tears springing up in his own eyes as he held onto Sherlock while the man fell apart. 

“Yeah, Sherlock,” he said softly.  “Of course we can.”

Xxx

The next morning, Sherlock woke up before John and scrawled a quick note on the back of a wrinkled old bill that he found on the kitchen table, placing it on the tea kettle so that John would be sure to find it when he woke.

‘Went to the yard to speak to sketch artist.  Don’t worry, I have your gift –SH’

He took a cab straight from Baker Street to the precinct, wrapping his long overcoat around himself even though the chill had let up slightly from the previous day.  But he was taking no chances today.

At Scotland Yard he was mostly ignored as Lestrade and Donovan went about their work, taking phone calls and meeting with solemn people who came in to make statements or file charges.  The sketch artist came out to meet Sherlock and they sat at one of the small desks out in the common area while the man worked on the drawing of Sherlock’s assailant.  It didn’t take long for Sherlock to list off all of the man’s features in aching detail, and when the artist was done he had a perfectly comparable portrait of the man who had helped attack Sherlock the previous day.

He got up to leave in no great hurry, thinking of even sticking around to help Lestrade with some of the smaller cases that the detective was always complaining were piling up.  John had no doubt left for the surgery some time ago, and Sherlock wasn’t inclined to go back and spend the day in an empty flat, but Lestrade’s voice shouting out his name over the din of the precinct was just a bit surprising—he didn’t think that the detective would have wanted Sherlock to stick around.

But the detective inspector stood in his doorway, dark eyes serious and solemn under his salt and pepper hair as he waited for Sherlock to come to him, standing aside in the doorway and pointing into his office as invitation for Sherlock to come in and sit down.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he told Sherlock as the pregnant man sat down in one of the guest seats, and he moved around the back of his desk to sit in his chair, staring at Sherlock from across the tabletop.  “About what happened yesterday.”

Sherlock held in a sigh by the thinnest of threads.  “I don’t need a lecture on carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, Lestrade.  I know very well that you were in the right.”  The words left his mouth bitterly, but he knew they were the truth.

That didn’t make him any happier to say them, though.

But across from him, Lestrade shook his head and frowned.  “Not about that,” he replied.  “It’s…about John, actually.”

“Oh?” Sherlock said carefully, slightly intrigued now.  “What is it, then?”

Lestrade shifted in his seat uncomfortably, and Sherlock did nothing to alleviate the man’s discomfort.  He knew he was not going to like what Lestrade was about to tell him, and he let a blank look fall over his face, hiding the anger that he was already beginning to feel at Lestrade’s impudence. 

“I just wanted to tell you—I mean, I thought that you should know,” Lestrade stammered, and then he seemed to find the words that he wanted, and he surged ahead, a little more confident now.  “He’s been a mess, lately.  Over the whole situation, and not just about what happened yesterday.  He’s been scared out of his mind and worried about you and the baby.”

“That’s understandable,” Sherlock said, choosing his words carefully.  He watched as Lestrade stared at him from across the desk, looking intently at his face for any sign of emotion or reaction.

When Lestrade got none, he scoffed and his frown deepened into something that closely resembled a grimace.  “You don’t even care, do you?” he asked Sherlock suddenly, no longer awkward and unsure of the direction of the conversation.  “You don’t even care about what you’re putting him through, going on with this charade.”

Sherlock tried to keep his composure, but Lestrade’s choice of words was unfortunate and had him snapping out a retort, suddenly incensed and short-tempered. 

“Charade?” he repeated, his voice dangerously low.  “Do you think I did this for fun?  That I just got bored one day and thought to myself, ‘What would be the best way to turn my life into a living nightmare’?”

But Lestrade would not be put off by a snarky comment and a thunderous look.  “It seems like it, Sherlock,” he agreed, continuing to prod the brunette man.  “And you have to admit that you’ve done just that thing before, in the past.”

“I’m through with this,” Sherlock said suddenly, quickly rising from his seat and heading towards Lestrade’s closed office door.

But before he could reach it, he heard the detective inspector’s voice tauntingly behind him.  “Where you going, Sherlock?  Don’t want to stick around and explain to me how I’m wrong?”

At the door, Sherlock turned back around to look at the other man, giving him an incredulous look.  “This has become a game to you, Lestrade,” he told the man.  “To see how badly you can make me feel about myself while you feel vindicated that you’re the only one good enough for John.  And it’s a game that I am no longer willing to play with you.  What happens between John and I will stay between John and I, and I don’t need you snooping around, looking pathetically for a bit of sloppy seconds.”

His hand grasped the doorknob and turned it, and he was almost out of the room when Lestrade’s voice cut across him again, sharp and deadly and striking a deep blow into Sherlock’s chest, making him catch his breath.

“He’s not some experiment that you can run tests on,” Lestrade said lowly, his voice dark and dangerous.  “You can’t see how far you can push him before he snaps, see how much he is willing to put up with—and then record data from later on.  He deserves better than that.  And so does this child.”

Sherlock slammed the door shut again with a rattle of the pane of glass that was on it, turning to the detective and giving him a murderous look.  “Don’t sit there and tell me what you think my child deserves,” he said quietly, voice shaking with his constraint.  His hands clenched into fists at his side and he had the most obsessive urge to punch Lestrade in the face, repeatedly, until his hands were covered in the other man’s blood.

“What were you even thinking, taking that pill?” Lestrade urged, standing up now, too, so that he was at a comparable height to Sherlock, shoulders set in tense lines and hands twitching only ever so slightly towards his holster in anticipation.  “You can’t handle a kid, Sherlock—you can barely handle yourself!”

“That is not your concern—” the brunette man began, taking a step towards Lestrade, wanting to make him shut up. 

But the detective inspector would not be silenced so easily.

“Oh, really?” Lestrade asked, and he brought a hand up to point accusingly at Sherlock.  “Because it was my concern when you were shoving a needle into the vein in your arm.  It was my concern when you were lying face down on a filthy mattress in some drug den.  It was my fucking concern when you were overdosing, and speedballing and _killing_ yourself with each hit, so don’t stand there and tell me that this is none of my concern!”  He was shouting now, and his breath was coming in short pants from the adrenaline of the situation.  A part of Sherlock was sure that they could probably be heard from outside of the office, but he didn’t particularly care anymore at this point.

“That’s enough!” he yelled out angrily.  “I never asked you for any help before, and I certainly don’t need it right now.  I don’t need anything from you.  I never have.”

Lestrade chuckled at Sherlock’s statement, but the sound held no mirth.  “No, you don’t need anything from me,” he agreed.  “But I can’t stand by and let you smother the life out of him the way you tried to smother yourself.  I care about him too much.”

“Ah, and there it is,” Sherlock stated, strangely satisfied.

“What?” Lestrade asked, confused but trying not to show it to Sherlock.

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” the consulting detective asked, rhetorically.

“What?” Lestrade repeated, not following Sherlock’s line of deduction.

So the pregnant man thought he should help him understand.  “You’re feelings for him,” he stated plainly, as if talking to a moron.

“Feelings?” Lestrade repeated, but he had the corned look of a feral animal that had just been caught with its paws in the rubbish bin.  “What ruddy feelings—?”

“You can’t hide it from me, Lestrade,” Sherlock interrupted him.  “ _I know everything_.  Your miniscule little brain could not possibly try to keep anything a secret from me.  I’ve always known.  I simply never felt the need to say anything because I knew that you would never do anything about it.  Until something pushed you hard enough, something drastic.  And now you can’t stand the fact that I have him, and I have this, and you have nothing.”

“No,” the detective disagreed with a shake of his head.  “What I can’t stand is the fact that you treat him like a lab rat.  Creating little mazes for him to solve and rewarding him with a piece of cheese when he’s done something you like.  You’re a twisted bastard, and you don’t deserve him.  You don’t deserve anything he’s given you, either.”

Now it was Sherlock’s turn to scoff in derision at Lestrade’s words.  “Whether you think I deserve it or not is irrelevant,” he told the man bitingly.  “I have it.  Because I took it, Greg.  I saw what I wanted and I stepped in and made it possible for myself.  I didn’t just sit back and pine over him as he went out with other people.  I intervened—”

“You _ruined_ his social life!” Lestrade interjected hopelessly.

“—And I took what I wanted,” Sherlock continued.  “That’s the difference between people like you and people like me.”  His bright eyes glinted at Lestrade from across the room in victory.  “See, I’ll always get what I want, in the end.  Because I plan, and I hypothesize, and I test, and I retest, and I follow the simple laws of science and everything always falls into place.”

He reached out once more to turn the knob, opening the door and preparing to leave Lestrade alone to contemplate his failures, but Lestrade’s voice called out to him once more, no longer harsh and angry but stoic and sad, almost resigned.

“You’re going to break his heart, one day, Sherlock.”

“Maybe,” Sherlock agreed, because he was not a fortune teller, after all, and he didn’t have any delusions about himself or what he was capable of.  “But today is not that day,” he told Lestrade with unwavering certainty.  “Tomorrow is not looking good either, sorry.”

And then he turned on his heel and left the office, head held high and his long overcoat fluttering about behind him.

X.X.X

A/N: Next chapter, ‘Sing Sing’.


	7. Sing Sing

After the incident with Lestrade at Scotland Yard, Sherlock was unsurprised that he didn’t get a call about a case for many days.  He tried to kill time with cases off of the blog, and was very lucky that something good enough to keep his mind occupied cropped up and caught his attention for over a week.  He had smaller cases, too, that kept him busy for a day or two here and there—it seemed that he was even more of a celebrity now than he had been in the past, and everyone wanted to have a pregnant, male consulting detective in their employ, even if only for a while. 

Sherlock was no idiot, though.  John went with him on most cases, when he could get away from the surgery, and for the few times his partner wasn’t there, John’s .45 was ever present, holstered and loaded and always at the ready.

Sherlock was taking no more chances with the strangers he dealt with in his everyday life.  To him, everyone was an enemy; everyone was against him.  Even the clients who wanted him to stay for tea after he had solved their cases for them were treated like any common anti-Synath.  There was no such thing as too cautious in his book anymore.

Xxx

Into his 6th month now, Sherlock would have been worried about the weight he was gaining if he wasn’t so damned _hungry_ all of the bloody time.  And the more he ate, the bigger he seemed to get with each passing day. 

He had to go out and buy more clothes, again.  This time, though, he had followed John’s instruction and had commissioned trousers tailor-made for him with a stretchy, spandex waistband that could be hidden underneath his dress shirts.  Unfortunately, it meant that he could no longer tuck his shirts into his slacks, but Sherlock was able to give up that one norm in favor of the most comfortable pair of trousers he had ever worn in his life.  After 5 months of having the unforgiving waistband of a pair of slacks digging into his poor abused abdomen, these trousers felt like heaven. 

On a negative note, though, they also were so forgiving that he no longer felt the need to end his meals early because his full stomach was pushing at the seams of his waistband, which meant that he was able to eat even more in a single sitting than he had in the past.

John, of course, found this all rather amusing and “endearing” as he liked to put it, but Sherlock thought it was a particular type of trap meant to torture him, seeing as the more he ate at dinner, the worse the case of heartburn he seemed to get later that night, right around bedtime.

And with the ever-growing abdomen came a new set of problems that he had not expected.  The foremost of those being that Sherlock’s stomach was gradually starting to look like a balloon that was slowly being filled too full with water.  The skin that stretched across his abdomen was thin and almost papery looking and he had found—to his narcissistic astonishment—that unsightly and prominent stretch marks were beginning to grow in the most horrible of places.  And, as if to add insult to injury, his navel, which had once looked quite human and cute (if he had to use a word to describe it, pre-pregnancy) was now simply something that made the whole water balloon analogy even more correct: it had popped out disturbingly, seemingly pushed through its own skin forcefully from the inside.

Because of these particular things, whenever he and John made love now, Sherlock would only do so with the bedroom lights off, and he refused to do anything in any position that made him feel as though he were a gigantic cow, preparing to be milked.  The blonde doctor tried to tell him on several occasions that he was being ridiculous, but John was not the one who had gained 15 extra pounds in all of the wrong places.

On top of the physical deformities that the pregnancy was beginning to bring on, Sherlock was even more mortified to find that the baby was sucking away at his mental facilities as well. 

“Pregnancy brain” John liked to jokingly call it, and he tried to reassure Sherlock that it was completely normal and nothing to be alarmed about at all.

It seemed that the hormones which had proven themselves to be a nightmare at the beginning of his pregnancy had once again resurfaced as the culprits in what was steadily becoming an increasingly nerve-wracking case of clumsiness and forgetfulness.  The hormones worked to loosen his joints and ligaments, John took care to explain to him on multiple occasions, so that his growing appendix and abdomen would not be so painful to deal with, and he warned that Sherlock’s shifted center of gravity from the added weight and the beach ball he was carrying in front of him were more likely to cause a trip, slip or fall than usual. 

John also seemed to think it was hilarious when Sherlock forgot an appointment with a client, what day of the week it was, or when he kept misplacing his pocket magnifying glass and setting experiments alight in their kitchen because he couldn’t seem to remember what chemicals he had put into certain beakers.  Then there had been the incident with the bag of toes that he had left out on the kitchen table accidentally one afternoon, instead of putting them in the freezer.  (John had _not_ been happy about that one, as the smell had taken days to air out of the flat and the table had needed a professional grade sanitizing after the frozen flesh had slowly melted and its juices had seeped through the flimsy bag Sherlock had brought them home in and coagulated on their kitchen table.)

It was all taking rather a lot to get used to, and Sherlock was finding that his patience for all of it was wearing thin.

When Lestrade was finally done licking his wounds and had gathered up the courage to give in and call Sherlock and John in on a particularly tough case, the brunette had been more than happy to have something to take his mind off of everything that seemed to be pulling him apart at the seams—but he had not expected for his ‘pregnancy brain’ to be so bad on that particular day that he couldn’t even function properly.

He and John met Lestrade and his team in a back alleyway a few blocks from the University of London, in an area that was known for their bars and clubs.  They made their way over to Lestrade, who was intent on examining the young woman who was lying face down on the ground before him, and pointedly ignoring Sherlock.

“This is the third one we’ve found like this in three weeks,” Lestrade told John, when the blonde man reached him and bent down to examine the body for cause of death.  “I can’t tell if this is just pure coincidence, or if there is a serial murderer out there stalking university girls.  We haven’t found anything to link them together, except that they have been found in, or have come from, areas of town where there are bars, but the deaths have all happened so close to each other that the Chief Inspector is going to want all possibilities brought up.”  He sighed tiredly and stood up, deep lines etching into his face.  “I’d like to avoid a serial murderer at all costs, you know?  So see if you can try to help me out this once.”

It was only after a few seconds had passed that Sherlock realized that Lestrade had been talking to him.

“Oh,” he said softly, “right.”  He quickly bent down, flipping his coat tails up so that he didn’t step on them as he crouched, and squatted next to John.  He dug in his coat pocket for his magnifying glass, only to let out a frustrated growl at not finding it where he usually kept it.

Beside him John chuckled softly, and handed him the small piece of glass.  “You forgot it on the end table.  I saw it after you had walked out,” he explained, mumbling lowly so that he didn’t draw the attention of Lestrade or his crew.  It was embarrassing enough for Sherlock to have to crawl around on the ground over the victim looking like a beached whale—he didn’t need anything else to make them snicker behind their hands.

Sherlock didn’t say anything to John; he simply took the magnifying glass from the doctor’s hand rudely, giving John a skeptical look.  If he didn’t know any better, he would think that John had gone into his pockets and taken the magnifying glass out just to have a laugh at him—he could have sworn he had left the damn thing in his coat after the last time he had used it.

It didn’t matter though, he guessed.  He went about looking the woman over, checking the area around her, taking what he could from the scene, as usual.  After a quiet moment, he nodded and stood up—too fast—and he had to catch his balance as he almost toppled over.

“Well?” Lestrade asked him coming back over to stand next to the body beside him, voice hopeful.  “What were you able to find out about her?”

“Early 20’s, university student,” Sherlock rambled off, pocketing his magnifying glass and making a mental note of its location in his mind palace.  Maybe then he would be able to keep tabs on the damn thing.  “Lives in a dormitory on campus, most likely all female.  Came from a pub, a celebration of some sort, judging by the few pieces of confetti that are still stuck in her hair.  Birthday, I’d assume.”

“Yeah,” Lestrade said, somewhat impatiently.  “We got all that.  What else?”

Sherlock turned to him, disbelieving, a deep frown on his face.  “What do you mean, ‘you got all that’?” he asked, incredulously.  “How could you possibly?”

Lestrade turned to Sherlock, eyes wide as he realized that he had done something as well as Sherlock bloody Holmes, for once.  “We looked at her ID,” he said simply, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do.  “It has her address and her birthdate.”

“Oh,” Sherlock said, his mind racing with a million different thoughts.  “Right.”  He felt distinctly flustered, as if he didn’t quite know what to do in this situation.  Everybody simply stood around him awkwardly, waiting for him to come up with something else, but he couldn’t get his mind to focus right, even for a second.

“Anything else, then?” Donovan finally spoke up, when no one seemed as if they were going to say anything or even move, unsure of what was going on.  “Or are you all tapped out?”

Sherlock bristled indignantly, a faint flush coming to his cheeks.  “Give me another moment,” he retorted, going back down to crouch over the body once more, looking for anything that he missed.  He went over every inch of her meticulously, dropping even lower on his hands and knees so that he could look straight into her face, feeling the ground rub against the bulge of his belly.  As he sat back up on the balls of his feet he gave a defeated sigh.

“This is no good,” he said, loudly, not looking at Lestrade or Donovan but instead staring at the dead woman.

“What?” Lestrade asked, groaning at the thought of the press conference and the paperwork.  “Think she was murdered, then?  Do you think it’s a serial killer?”  He brought his hands up to wipe at his face in exasperation.  “Media is going to have a field day with this one,” he mumbled dejectedly.

“No, not that,” Sherlock said with a shake of his head, dismissing the detective inspector with a wave of his hand.

Lestrade frowned down at him.  “Then what?” he asked, confused.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Sherlock said decisively, standing up and brushing his trousers off.

“What?”

“The bathroom, I have to go,” he repeated.  “Rather badly.”

Lestrade gave him a disbelieving look before answering, as if needing to be sure he had really heard the brunette man before responding to him.  “Sherlock, really!  We are trying to get this done so that we can clear it all up!  And here you are, needing a bloody bathroom break?”

Sherlock shrugged, at a loss as to what the detective inspector wanted from him.  “I’m sorry, Lestrade, it’s not like I can really help it, now can I?” he asked impetuously.

The detective inspector rolled his eyes heaven-ward, fed up.  “Oh, for the love of—fine, go!” he yelled out, throwing his hands up in the air.  “Take a piss, grab a cuppa while you’re at it; we’ll all be waiting here for you to get back.  No rush or anything!”

Sherlock bit his tongue as Lestrade ranted on, wanting to snap back a retort, but needing to use the facilities with much more urgency.  The baby inside of him gave a quick flicker of a limb, nudging his bladder just right, and he knew that he couldn’t waste another second on quibbling with Lestrade—not if he wanted to keep what little dignity he had left in front of them.

He quickly turned on his heel, coat flapping about around him, and made for the main road, looking for the nearest spot that would have a public bathroom.

Xxx

“Greg, go easy on him,” John scolded the detective inspector once Sherlock was out of earshot.  “He’s not having an easy time of it, you know.”

Lestrade, though, didn’t seem half as concerned about the brunette man as the blonde doctor was.  “I don’t care, John,” he answered.  “His sense of entitlement has been getting even worse lately, and he needs to know that we all aren’t going to cater to him like you do.”

“That’s fine, Greg,” John said with a frown, “but you don’t have to be a jerk about it.”  He didn’t particularly know what had gone on between Sherlock and the detective that morning that the brunette man had gone to Scotland Yard without him, but he wasn’t as stupid as Sherlock liked to complain he was—he knew that Lestrade had not called or texted the consulting detective about a case in the last several days, and Greg had even stopped texting him with the usual amicable chatter or chain-forwarded dirty picture that he usually sent.

“ _I’m_ the jerk?” Lestrade turned to give him a look of actual disbelief.  “Everything that he does, and _I’m_ the jerk?”  He stared at John blankly for a moment, as if truly not comprehending the man’s words and John began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, as if he may have been a little too harsh with Greg.  After all, the detective inspector had never been anything but supporting and understanding towards John, especially these past few months, when the doctor felt he had needed it the most.

Feeling badly about his words, John reached a hand out to squeeze Greg’s shoulder and he gave the man a small smile, a silent apology.  “Just give him some leeway,” he restated his earlier comment.  “The pregnancy is really taking a lot out of him at this stage.”

Greg scoffed but seemed to take John’s apology.  He didn’t shake John’s hand off and even seemed to lean into the touch slightly.  “I refuse to believe that,” he answered John, jokingly.  “He’s like a plague, always has been.  Not even a parasite would be able to slow him down.”

“Hey,” John said, mocking anger, “watch it.  That ‘parasite’ is my kid.”

Greg’s smile only grew, and he threw his own arm over John’s shoulders, bringing the shorter doctor up against him and giving him a friendly squeeze.  “No, it’s _half_ your kid,” Greg explained.  “Half his.  So only half parasite, then.”

Even though John knew it wasn’t proper to be making fun of his unborn child or the man who was carrying him, he couldn’t help but laugh at Greg’s joke along with the detective inspector.

And that was how Sherlock found them when he dawdled back to the crime scene.  His eyes narrowed as he took in the sight of John and Greg standing together, arms slung over each other’s shoulders and laughing so hard that they were clutching at their stomachs.

When he saw the two men, his eyes immediately narrowed at their close proximity and his mouth set into a hard, unhappy line.

“You shouldn’t laugh at crime scenes, Lestrade,” he said, and it was only because John had known him for so long that he could detect the hint of jealousy in the man’s deep baritone voice.  “It’s highly inappropriate, don’t you think?”

“He’s right,” John said, untangling himself from Greg and moving away from him, wiping at the tears of mirth that had formed at the corners of his eyes.  “Sorry.  We’re fine now.”

“Indeed,” Sherlock replied, his aqua eyes locked on John, watching him intently as the doctor stepped away from Greg and towards the brunette man, back to his spot beside Sherlock.

If Greg noticed the slight movement, the only indication he gave of his disapproval was a hard set of his lips and another rude remark towards the consulting detective.  “Come on then, Sherlock.  Astound us, like old days.  But be quick about it, I’ve got a lot of paperwork to finish up.”

Xxx

At Sherlock’s next doctor’s appointment, Dr. Greenwhich didn’t even bother sending in a nurse.  He tended to Sherlock for the whole appointment, being cautious and a little sterner with the pregnant man than Sherlock thought he usually was with his patients.

But, Sherlock guessed that he deserved it, after all of the trouble he had caused for the doctor with his staff.

“Well, Mr. Holmes,” Dr. Greenwhich said, pulling off his latex examination gloves with a loud snap and turning in his little swivel stool to face the brunette man.  “Everything is looking good.”  He pulled out Sherlock’s medical chart and jotted down a few notes, looking back over the papers when he was done, to see Sherlock’s progress.  “I’m delighted with the weight you’ve been gaining—I thought you were going to be one of those problem pregnancies who couldn’t stomach any food,” he chuckled softly to himself, at some small, unknown inside joke.  “But according to your growth chart, you are right on track.  Most delighting to see.”

Sherlock grumbled a rude response, still very much sensitive about his weight.  It didn’t matter to him if it was healthy or not—it made him feel more human than he was used to feeling, and he didn’t like that one bit.

Dr. Greenwhich only chuckled louder at Sherlock’s response.  “I know it’s getting harder and harder to bear,” he said reassuringly, “but you’re almost three quarters of the way there, already.  Not much longer to go now.”

He gathered up his paperwork, a silent signal for John and Sherlock to prepare to leave, and the two men did just that.  John had to help Sherlock up out of the medical exam chair that the brunette had been reclined in, and he handed Sherlock his coat as well, helping the man into it before putting on his own.

“Have you discussed names yet?” Dr. Greenwhich asked amicably as the two prepared to depart.  “That’s always something that prospective parents enjoy doing, to make the time a little easier to handle.”

There was a low rumble starting in Sherlock’s throat as the man turned the collar of his coat up which John thankfully heard before it could turn into biting words.

“We have an on-going list,” John answered for Sherlock, quickly and diplomatically, leaving no room for a discussion on it.  He shimmied into his own black coat, pulling at the sleeves of his jumper underneath once he had it on.

“I see,” the doctor replied, with a knowing smile.  “Can’t agree on anything, eh?  That’s all right—take your time with it.  It will come to you, soon.”  He held the door open for them to walk through, leading them down the small corridor and out into the waiting room of his office building where he stopped, turning to look at both of them before they left. 

“There is something else that you two need to be doing, before you get any farther along, Mr. Holmes.”  He turned to the wall closest to him, where a small metal shelf held dozens of brochures in a plethora of colors and sizes.  He gingerly picked up the one he was looking for when he finally came across it and handed it to Sherlock.  “I’d like for you and Dr. Watson to attend a birthing and infant care class that I will be holding here at the office in a couple of weeks.”

Sherlock drew breath to speak, but before he could even get a word across, Dr. Greenwhich had brought a hand up to stop him.  “I know that the birthing portion won’t really pertain to you the way that it will everyone else who is there, but it will still give us the chance to set up your birthing plan, and I will go over what your labor will be like, compared to everyone else’s.”

“Birthing plan?” Sherlock asked, not liking the way the words sat on his tongue.  He didn’t like _plans_.  The making of a ‘plan’ assumed that the person didn’t know what they were doing, and had to strategize the best way to go about their business in case something went wrong.  The only time that he had ever _planned_ anything had ended in him standing on the rooftop of St. Bart’s hospital, looking down at John while the blonde man stared up at him, watching him as he—

He shook himself and immediately cut off that particular train of thought.  Sherlock didn’t like to plan anything.  He worked on cases and went where the clues took him and he _always_ persevered in the end.

Having a plan just seemed so…boring.

“Yes, it’s simply the outline of everything that you want done when it is time for baby to be born,” Dr. Greenwhich was explaining to him, unaware that Sherlock was barely paying attention to him and was instead lost in his own thoughts, again.  “A lot of people find that the uncertainty of labor is a bit much to handle all at once, and they like to have a plan laid out before everything gets so hectic that you can’t make any decisions on the spur of the moment.  A birthing plan is always a good idea, to give you a sense of comfort and stability, if nothing else, once you go into labor.”

‘Before everything gets hectic’, Dr. Greenwhich said.  Sherlock didn’t need to be a genius to know that this was an understatement, a phrase doctors used so that they didn’t have to say ‘Once the bleeding and screaming and pain comes around, you’re completely fucked’.

“I, er, haven’t really thought much about…” Sherlock mumbled, slightly embarrassed by the truth of his own words.  He had been so preoccupied with the pregnancy lately and everything that was happening with the anti-Synaths and Lestrade that the thought of what was going to happen at the end of the 40 weeks had completely slipped his mind.

40 weeks.

It had seemed like forever, when he first took the Synathida.

Hell, it had seemed like forever just a few moments ago, when he hadn’t been bothered with the whole ‘birthing plan’ business.

But now he was suddenly very aware that he was almost 30 weeks along, and that number was only getting closer to 40.  And then he realized that most first time pregnancies ended in preterm labor, even for a healthy woman, and his chances of carrying full term were not as high due to the fact that he was not, in fact, a healthy woman.

And now that 40 had just become 38 or 36 or….

Dr. Greenwhich suddenly clapped him on the back good-naturedly, jarring him from the downward spiral his thoughts had been pulling him into, that never-ceasing smile on his face.  “No worries, dear boy,” he soothed, unaware of the inner turmoil he had caused, and the road of self-destruction he had just set Sherlock on.  “We’ll take care of all of it at the birthing class. Thank you for your time, Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson.  I look forward to seeing you there.” 

He offered his hand for each of the boys to take, but only John reciprocated.  When Sherlock simply stood there, silent and lost in his owns thoughts, not taking the doctor’s hand, John had to offer a polite smile and an excuse for the brunette man as Dr. Greenwhich stared at him in concern.  John then proceeded to push Sherlock out of the office building, while the brunette man simply stared in front of him, mind racing with thoughts and worries and other things that he had never bothered to acknowledge before.

Xxx

“We’re going to have a baby,” Sherlock finally said, sometime much later, when John had gotten him home and set him in the doctor’s own red chair and set about making tea in the kitchen.

Sherlock had stayed quiet the entire way home after they had left the doctor’s office.  Quiet in the cab coming home and pliant as John had walked him up the stairs and set him in the chair, not speaking, barely even blinking. 

John would have been worried if Sherlock didn’t have a history of such unusual behavior in the past.

Although, he would be lying if he said that he wasn’t relieved to finally hear Sherlock’s voice once again.  “Yeah,” he said, filling a cup full of tea and stirring sugar into it, taking it back out into the living room and handing it to the brunette man silently.  “Glad you’re finally noticing.”

Sherlock reached out to take the cup but didn’t drink from it.  Instead, he lowered his hands onto his lap and held it there as he spoke.  “No, John, I mean, _we_ are going to have a _baby_.”

He suddenly looked about him, sea-foam eyes taking in the disaster of their living room, books and papers and notepads and newspapers covering every square inch of clear space there had ever been in 221b.  “Where are we going to put the bloody thing?” he asked suddenly.  “What do we feed it when it’s hungry?  What about when it craps itself?  Who is going to take care of that?”

John gave him an astonished sort of look.  He couldn’t believe that they were 7 months into the pregnancy, and Sherlock was just now stating these questions, voicing these fears. 

“Sherlock, what has gotten into you?” he asked the man, at a slight loss for better words.  But he suddenly couldn’t think very clearly, watching as Sherlock seemed to be having a slight panic attack in front of him, eyes wide and wild and his breathing becoming somewhat labored.  “Of course we are going to take care of all of that!  That’s what having a baby entails!”

“And what about when we are on a case?” Sherlock asked, finally not able to sit any longer.  He stood up suddenly, making John, who had been leaning over him slightly to keep tabs on his breathing, jump back.  His large hands slammed the tea cup down on the coffee table, sloshing the brown liquid inside of it around and making a mess, but he didn’t seem to care.  “Or when we have to go out of town for work?  What are we going to do then?” he continued to ask, pacing about their living room and twirling on his heel when he reached a wall, not able to walk any farther.  “We haven’t thought about any of this, and it’s going to be here before we know it.”

John watched him for a moment, letting Sherlock’s words sink in.  “ ‘It’s’ going to be here?” he asked, thin lips drooping into a frown.  “No, Sherlock— _he_ is going to be here.  Don’t start with that,” he chastised harshly.

“Start with what?” Sherlock asked, distractedly, still pacing back and forth in front of John.

“Detaching yourself like you do.”

“I don’t do that.”

“Yeah, you do,” John argued in a clipped tone, watching as Sherlock continued pacing.

Sherlock threw his hands up into the air, tired of John’s attempt to divert him.  “It doesn’t matter, John!” he yelled out angrily.  “The only thing that matters right now is what I’ve done.”  He finally stopped his pacing and turned to face John, and his voice when he spoke next was suddenly very small, and John couldn’t help the small smile that strayed to his lips at the ridiculousness of the situation suddenly.  “I’ve doomed us.”

“Doomed us?” John repeated, his smile growing now to a grin that he could not force down.  “Don’t be so dramatic, Sherlock.”

But Sherlock only frowned harder at him, thick black eyebrows scrunching together to form that knot of flesh in between them that John always felt the urge to smooth out with his fingertip.  “I’m not being dramatic, John,” he said irritably, “I’m being frank.  I’ve never handled a child.  I feel confident enough around you to admit: I haven’t the slightest idea what to do with one.”

“Shocking,” John replied, the smile getting bigger once again.

“You’re laughing at me,” Sherlock said suddenly, astutely.

“You’re being ridiculous,” John explained, innocently.

Sherlock huffed and fell onto their full sized couch, turning to lie on his side, face towards the seat cushions and back towards John in a fit of immaturity.  “Fine, John,” he told the couch cushions.  “When I smother our baby to death because I’ve put its diaper on the wrong end, don’t blame me.  I’ve given you fair warning—I’m not father material.”

John chuckled silently, so that Sherlock wouldn’t hear him, and made his way over to where Sherlock was lying, crouching down on his knees beside the couch next to Sherlock’s dark head.  He reached out a gentle hand and ran his fingers through Sherlock’s curls, black in the darkness of their flat.  He knew Sherlock was wanting John to reassure him, tell him that everything was not as bad as all of that, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie to the man—he wasn’t that kind of person.  So instead he continued to stroke Sherlock’s hair and he whispered, “Don’t you think I know that, Sherlock?”

It was not the words Sherlock had been expecting, John could tell, and he pulled away from the blonde man as best he could in the close confines of the couch, turning his head back to look at the other man in shock.  “John!” he said, voice hurt and full of disbelief.

But John just laughed at him, not bothering to hide it this time.  He leaned away from Sherlock to give the man room to turn over on the couch, so that he was facing the doctor.  “Of course you’re not father material,” he told the brunette man.  “You’re Sherlock Holmes!  I’m not even sure you’re human, half the time.”

He watched as the frown came back to Sherlock’s face, and the pregnant man drew breath to speak, no doubt to say something harsh and mean, but John cut him off before he had the chance.  “But I’ve never once seen you do something half-arsed and you’ve never backed down from a fight,” he continued, his voice going soft and his hand coming back up to brush a stray curl out of Sherlock’s face.  “And that’s really what being a parent is all about.  Everything else, you learn.  Mrs. Hudson can teach us how to cook proper meals, and I can start picking up a few more of the pediatrics cases at the surgery.  We’ll find a nanny for days when we work late, and maybe we’ll even hire a live-in for when we got out of town.  Everything is going to be okay, Sherlock.  We’re going to get through this.  Together.  You and me.”  He leaned forward on his knees to give Sherlock a kiss, pressing him into the couch cushions.  When he was done tasting the man, he sat back on the balls of his feet and looked at the brunette man before him.  “All right?” he asked him.

But Sherlock still had a distant look in his eyes, as if he were not completely convinced.  “What about the labor?” he asked.  “That’s not going to be ‘you and me’.  That’s just going to be me.  Alone.  You won’t be able to help me through that one.”

John could see suddenly why Sherlock was nervous.  They had been partners for many years, now, and although Sherlock had obviously gotten along well enough before John had come into his life, there was no denying that the blonde man had definitely had a deep impact on Sherlock’s career, mental state, and personal life.  And even though he took smaller cases nowadays without John’s assistance, he was constantly on the phone with the doctor, asking him questions or for his opinion.  They were partners, in every sense of the word, and they had dealt with everything together from murderers to psychopaths to family members.  And now here was something that Sherlock had to do completely by himself.

Even for the most independent person, which John had no doubt that Sherlock still was, despite their years together, he was sure that the thought of being alone in that pain was nothing short of terrifying.

He looked into Sherlock’s eyes, and his heart melted at what he saw there.  Fear, uncertainty, desperation…yet the strength and resolve that were ever-present, that John had fallen in love with.  “You’re going to be marvelous at it,” he whispered to the brunette man, hand coming back up to stroke at Sherlock’s cheek.  “I’ve seen you take punches and get stabbed.  You’ve broken bones and been hit over the head and been drugged.  And you’ve survived all of that.  Do you really think this would get the better of you?” he asked, the corner of his mouth tilting up into a challenging smile.

Sherlock’s lips suddenly mirrored his own, and the grin that grew on them was genuine and sharp.  “Nothing could get the better of me, John,” he told the blonde man.

“Exactly.”

Xxx

The next week found John having to very nearly forcibly drag Sherlock out of their flat, on the day that Dr. Greenwhich’s birthing class was being held.  The brunette man was adamant that this was going to be a waste of time, but John’s intense sense of decorum would not allow them to miss this class after Dr. Greenwhich had stated how important he thought it would be for Sherlock.

And as much as he didn’t want to sit in a room filled with pregnant women and their husbands and talk about things like vaginas and uterus’ and breast feeding, he trusted that Dr. Greenwhich would not ask them to come along to something that they did not need to attend.

So he had forced Sherlock out of his pajamas and into some decent clothes, packed them up, and dragged the brunette man across town, to Dr. Greenwhich’s office building.

And now they sat in the middle of a room full of heterosexual couples, a small, plastic, ethnically androgynous baby doll in Sherlock’s hands as he stared at it in uncertainty, holding on to one of its arms with just the tips of his index finger and thumb.  John cringed as he looked around the room and saw everyone sneaking curious, conspicuous glances at them.  He seriously doubted that they had ever been in a more ridiculous situation than this one.

With a grimace he suddenly remembered the whole ‘blanket toga in Buckingham Palace’ incident.

Scratch his last thought—he would take this situation any day of the week.

The rest of the seminar flew by in mostly useless information about how labor comes on in women, and what needs to be done once labor is suspected.  Once he was done lecturing, Dr. Greenwhich told Sherlock and John that he would discuss their particular situation with them separately, after the class, and he then moved on to a basic newborn care demonstration, in which he had the couples take their baby dolls and he showed them the proper way to hold a baby so that its head was supported, how to change an infant, how to swaddle them properly without hurting or suffocating them, and the different techniques on burping, among other things.

John, it seemed, was a natural at such tasks, which was very lucky for them, because Sherlock would probably have ended up smothering their child in a blanket or tightening his diaper so harshly that the infant wouldn’t be able to breathe if John ever left him alone with the baby.

“No, Sherlock, not like that,” John said, exasperated as he let the brunette man try for the seventh time to get the diaper right.  “You’ll cut off all the circulation to his lower body if you tighten it that much.”

Sherlock let out a frustrated growl and gave the baby a violent shake.  “What does it matter?  It’s a bloody doll!” he said, trying to keep his voice down and not draw attention to themselves.

It wasn’t working.

“Yeah, but our son won’t be, now pay attention!” John snapped, yanking the baby away from Sherlock and laying it back on their table, showing Sherlock one more time how it was supposed to go.

“Easy,” John said when he was done, a smug smile forming on his lips.  It wasn’t often that he was better at something than Sherlock, and he was quite enjoying watching the brunette crash and burn in this aspect, even though he knew he should be more worried about Sherlock’s rather alarming inability to even properly care for a plastic doll.

Sherlock was about to open his mouth to make some biting retort when Dr. Greenwhich’s voice suddenly cut across the room.

“All right, that’s all the time we have for this week.  There will be another class next week, same day and time, and we will be going over the things you should expect from your first post-natal doctor’s visit, and what your baby’s first doctor’s visit will be like.”  Everyone began preparing to leave, setting their baby dolls all rather gently on their tables.  Across the room, Dr. Greenwhich called John and Sherlock to him and the two went to meet him, Sherlock dragging their baby doll along upside down by its ankle.

“What did you think of the class, Mr. Holmes?” Dr. Greenwhich asked, a knowing smile on his face. 

“I thought it was rather boring and tedious,” Sherlock stated, and John had to nudge him sharply in the side.  “But I guess some of the information was relevant.”

“I should hope so, Mr. Holmes,” Dr. Greenwhich said, looking down at Sherlock’s doll as it hung upside down from his grasp.  “I was watching you as you worked through some of the exercises.  It was…interesting…to say the least.  I’m glad Dr. Watson will be there to help you through it all.”

“I’m sure I’d be able to manage without him.”

They all knew that was a lie, but they chose not to say anything about it.

“Let’s go over what your experience with labor will be like, Mr. Holmes.”  Dr. Greenwhich changed the subject suddenly, thankfully.  “I didn’t want to get into it during the class because your labor will be slightly different from the ladies’.”  He turned around to the dry erase board behind him, and reached up to pull down a screen from a tube that had been bolted above the board.  On the screen, there were two pictures, one of a female’s anatomy and the other of a male, right next to it.  Both drawings had all of the organs labeled, and Dr. Greenwhich pointed to the appendix of the male drawing, tapping the screen with the tip of his finger.

“Since your baby has set up camp in your appendix, when you are ready to go into labor the pains will feel distinctly like appendicitis,” he explained.  “It will start with a mild to moderate pain near the naval or the upper abdomen that will become increasingly sharper as it moves to the lower right quadrant of your abdomen over time.”  His finger circled the areas on the screen that he was talking about, and both Sherlock and John paid close attention to him, not wanting to miss a word.  “Soon after the abdominal pain, nausea or vomiting will occur, followed by a fever that usually does not exceed 39 degrees Celsius.  Along with these standard symptoms, you may have painful urination and severe cramps, and the pain in your abdomen can grow to encompass anywhere in your upper or lower abdomen, your back and even your rectum.”

Dr. Greenwhich suddenly turned away from the picture on the screen, giving Sherlock a hard, stern stare that the brunette man did not remember ever seeing on the kindly doctor’s face before.  “As soon as your signs of labor appear, it is very important for you to come straight to the hospital, do you understand, Mr. Holmes?” Dr. Greenwhich stated, his voice clear in the silence of the room.  “Because the baby is in your appendix, there is a definite chance that if the labor goes on too long before we get the baby out, your appendix will burst, spilling infectious materials into your abdominal cavity which can lead to peritonitis, septicemia and eventually death.”  His hard look continued to bore into Sherlock, and the brunette man was beginning to understand that Dr. Greenwhich was not a man whose words one could just dismiss.  “Dr. Watson can tell you as well, I’m sure, that this is not something to be taken lightly, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock nodded to him, silently telling him that he understood, while the baby inside of him fluttered apprehensively as Sherlock’s heartbeat sped up imperceptibly. 

Confident that Sherlock had taken his warning to heart, Dr. Greenwhich turned back to the drawing on the screen and continued his explanation of Sherlock’s labor to the two men.  “Your baby will be delivered through a surgery that is a sort of mixture of an appendectomy and a Caesarian.  Like a C-section, we will administer an epidural, and make an incision across your abdomen right about here,” he mimicked a small cut across the abdomen of the male drawing with his fingernail, showing Sherlock exactly where he would be opened up, “though it will be bigger than the standard laparotomy to ensure that we can get the baby out.  But unlike a Caesarian, we will be heading towards your appendix, which we will then open to remove the baby.  Once the baby and placenta has been taken out, we will complete the appendectomy, removing it completely from your body.”

Explanation done, Dr. Greenwhich pulled the screen back down again so that it could ravel itself back up into the metal tubing above the dry erase board and out of sight.  “If all goes well, you will be up and about in the same amount of time that it takes a woman to recover from a Caesarian,” the doctor continued to explain.  “It is a procedure that should not be complicated, and one which I have performed before, so do not worry,” he said, smiling at the blank look that had once again come over Sherlock’s face.

It was a lot of information to take in, even for a brain as high functioning as his.

“I must warn you, though, Mr. Holmes,” Dr. Greenwhich said suddenly, voice not nearly as cheerful as it had been a moment ago.  “The chance for peritonitis is high if you wait too long after the signs of labor first appear.  You need to be sure that you come straight to the hospital if you even suspect that you have gone into labor.  Do you understand everything that I have explained to you, Mr. Holmes?”

Sherlock nodded again, but when that didn’t seem good enough for Dr. Greenwhich, he licked his lips nervously and said, “Yes.”

“Good,” the old doctor said, his smile once more coming back.  “Now, for the love of God, give me that doll before you make its head fall off.”

X.X.X

A/N: I just want to take this moment to thank all the readers of this fic for the kudos and lovely comments.  They mean the world to me!  I know I haven’t said very much about the album that this story was based off of, but if you are really enjoying this fic, I would highly suggest giving the album a listen.  I tried to incorporate the essence of each song into the corresponding chapter for it, and I think at least a few of you out there will fall in love with the band.  So in case you forgot, the band’s name is Marianas Trench, and the album is ‘Masterpiece Theatre’.  Next chapter is ‘All To Myself’.


	8. All to Myself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whuuut? An update 2 days in a row??? I know, it's amazing. But I am going out of town for the rest of the month at the end of this week, and I want to try to finish this story before then, so be on the lookout for a post a day or maybe even 2 a day! Oh, and I know some of you are worried about the John/Lestrade scenes, but I don’t want you to worry too much--this story is TOTALLY Johnlock through and through (doesn't mean I can't play with our boy's heads, though. Muahaha...)!

It was all becoming so very real, suddenly.

They went out shopping for more baby items, throwing everything that they bought into a jumbled heap in John’s old bedroom until, one day, the blond man couldn’t take the mess anymore and he decided to spend a weekend setting up the nursery.

Periodically, Sherlock would amble into the room as John went about setting up furniture, cleaning up messes, folding baby clothes and receiving blankets in military fashion, and organizing toys into one corner, and the pregnant man would sit in the comfortable rocking chair that he had picked out for the room at _Le Petite Boutique_ and sit in silence while he watched John work.

Sherlock had stopped talking once again—something that John was beginning to re-accustom himself to, thinking back on his earlier days of first moving in to Baker Street, all those years ago when he and Sherlock were just beginning to become acquainted.  During the middle of the night, John would be woken by the sad sound of the violin again, on a regular basis, and he would simply sigh and turn over, frustrated at the fact that Sherlock was keeping him at arm’s length again, and there was nothing John could do about it.

The blond doctor tried not to worry too much about it, though.  For each time that John felt Sherlock slipping away from him, there was usually a moment or respite that the two found, even through Sherlock’s silence, that reminded John of how much the two cared for each other, of how much they meant to each other.

Sherlock’s smile was always the best part of these little moments, and the thing that kept John from going crazy with doubt.  Sherlock never smiled like that for anyone else, a genuine, soul-glimpsing turn of the corners of his cupid’s bow mouth, the shadows of light sometimes catching in the little scar that sat on one corner of his mouth.  Only for John.  That smile was ever only for John.

And although Sherlock was not intent on speaking much, he still seemed to have a physical need for John, even if he didn’t have an auditory one.  It was slightly strange, to not speak to your significant other for days, but know that it was not due to a fight or some other relationship problem, and then suddenly have said partner lean over you while you sat in your favorite chair reading a paper and minding your own business, kissing you deeply and softly and meaningfully. 

John felt like it wasn’t quite right, but he was so desperate for anything that Sherlock would give him at this moment, that he reached up to tangle his hands in Sherlock’s dark hair, the sunlight streaming in through their living room window catching in the brunette locks in dirty rays of light and turning it a deep chestnut color.  His fingers tangled around strands and pulled Sherlock close, so that the man couldn’t slip away from him again.  Not now, not so soon.

He stood, Sherlock still connected to him through tongues and teeth and touch, and pulled the pregnant man towards their bedroom, an urgency flaring up in him that he was used to dealing with, where Sherlock was concerned.

Sherlock’s growing stomach was making it hard to find comfortable positions for them, but John didn’t really mind.  His favorite position had always been taking Sherlock while the other man was on his back, John between his legs.  A seemingly boring position, basic and unelaborate.  But John loved it because he could see Sherlock.  Could watch Sherlock’s face as John fucked him senseless, could see Sherlock’s fingers reaching wildly for his own cock, could see Sherlock’s hand as it found its prize and rubbed feverishly up and down his own red, engorged length.

And then, he could lean forward just a little, to press a kiss to Sherlock’s lips, and even that small movement would alter their angle, and what John had thought felt like heaven just a second ago was nothing compared to this now, and Sherlock’s voice filled his ears with deep moans and heavy breaths and soft whispers.

John loved watching Sherlock while the brunette was being fucked.

Even now, with his tummy swollen, John had never seen a more erotic sight.  The other man’s cock rested on the small mound, closer to John than it normally was when he put Sherlock in this position, the skin red and shiny.  He reached out to take it in his hand, and Sherlock bucked, a hoarse, animalistic sound escaping from his throat as he threw his head back.

He could not thrust into Sherlock with as much force as he had in the past.  Most of his effort now was centered around making sure his arms held as much of his weight as they could when he leaned over Sherlock, careful not to crush the man beneath him.  His shoulder was beginning to hurt from the pressure he was putting on it, but he ignored it.  He wouldn’t let anything take Sherlock from him in this moment.  Not pain, not fear, not worries about their future or their relationship.

He made love to Sherlock slowly, languidly, wanting to drown in him forever.  His cock slid in and out of the brunette man beneath him easily, and with each thrust Sherlock let out a small whimper of want that drove John wild.

And, suddenly, Sherlock craned his head up to capture John’s mouth in a kiss, sweet and soft and innocent.  And for the first time in days, Sherlock spoke to him, his voice hoarse with arousal and from not being used.

“I love you, John.”

And those four words, surrounded on either side of time by Sherlock’s silence, were enough to undo John completely.

Xxx

“What are you doing?” Sherlock asked him one evening.

The silent ban on 221b Baker Street had been temporarily revoked a few days prior, and Sherlock had resumed life with John as if nothing had happened at all.  John knew better than to ask if Sherlock was fine or what the silence had been all about.  Sherlock had never been one to explain his actions or the need for certain things in his life.  John would just have to content himself with the fact that Sherlock was speaking and sleeping again, and be happy with that for the moment.

For now, John clicked his phone off, the screen going dark as Sherlock craned his next to see what John had been doing.  “Greg texted,” he answered Sherlock shortly.  “Wants to go out for a pint tomorrow.”

Sherlock moved across the living room, bag of crisps in hand, and sat in John’s chair, giving the blonde man a hard, clinical stare.  “Been getting chummy with him lately, haven’t you?” he asked the doctor, as John sat across from him in Sherlock’s rickety seat and flipped nonchalantly through a medical journal.

“I’ve been able to talk to him about stuff that’s been going on,” John answered simply, not bothering to grace Sherlock with a look.  In truth, John had spent more time talking to Lestrade during Sherlock’s self-imposed silent treatment than John had felt like he had talked to the brunette man in weeks.

But Sherlock didn’t need to know any of that.

“What stuff?” the pregnant man asked, suspiciously.

“Just stuff, Sherlock,” John said with a sigh, turning the page of the journal slowly.

There was a brief moment of silence in which John stupidly thought the conversation was over, but then Sherlock’s deep baritone cut through the stillness once more.

“Stuff pertaining to me?”

“Maybe, yeah,” John finally conceded, exasperated.  He closed the medical journal with a loud slap of pages hitting pages and finally turned his attention to the brunette man sitting across the coffee table from him.  “What does it matter?  He’s my friend—what’s the point in having friends if I can’t complain about my relationship and my work to them over a pint?”

Sherlock simply rolled his sea green eyes at the blonde man.  “Please, John, even you couldn’t be that stupid,” he told the doctor, voice dark with bitterness.  “He’s not just trying to be your friend—he’s trying to get into your pants.”

Exasperated now, John didn’t even bother trying to fight Sherlock’s words.  “So what if he is, Sherlock?” he asked, mouth setting in a stern line.  “That doesn’t mean that I’ll let him.  And you’ve chased away all of my other friends—I’ve got no one left to talk to but him.”  He gave Sherlock a measuring look, his dark blue eyes calculating and daring Sherlock to challenge him.  “I’m going to go to the pub with him tomorrow evening to talk about how you are driving me up the wall, and then we’re going to have a good laugh and I’m going to come back home to you.  All right?  No funny stuff.”  And then, because he suddenly felt slightly guilty, he added in a much softer tone, “You can trust me, Sherlock.”

But Sherlock didn’t seem to want to be soothed.  “Don’t patronize me, John,” he said sharply.  “You know I don’t like the attention he’s been giving you and yet you continue to have a relationship with him.”

John sighed and stood up, not able to sit while having this conversation anymore.  He walked over to the mantle, looking down at the fire that burned merrily in the hearth, keeping his back to the brunette man.  “Well, as much as you don’t care to believe it, Sherlock, I can’t live my life with no one to talk to but you—when you _will_ talk to me.  And Greg has been the only one who’s ever been understanding enough of you to put up with you and continue to be my friend.” He sighed, and the sound was tired.  He turned back around to look at Sherlock, noticing that the pregnant man was still staring at him silently, as if waiting for him to do something.  “I’m going tomorrow night because I think we both need a bit of time apart.  It may do us some good.”

“ ‘Do us some good’,” Sherlock repeated with a scoff of derision.  “Please.  That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard you say, and you come up with some winners.  A bit of time apart will do nothing but remind us of how much we enjoy being away from each other.  I swear, if you were any less intelligent I’d have to water you twice a week.”

Xxx

He didn’t know why he said it, really.  Any of it.  From the blatant reminder that he and John didn’t always get on to the insult about John’s intellect—which he knew John had always had a pet peeve about—he knew that it was not the best addition to the conversation, but the words were out of his mouth before he even had time to filter them, as usual.  Old habits really were hard to break, after all.

John stared at him for a moment, astonishment turning to anger in an instant.  “Is that what you think, then?” John asked, and Sherlock could see his body tensing in fury against the outline of the fire behind him.  “That I’m just some bloody idiot, someone who you’ve been toying with this whole time, because I give you a good laugh?  So that you can see what ‘normal’ people are really like?”

Sherlock sighed and closed his eyes, tired of this argument already.  “John, don’t do this.  I’m sorry, okay?” he gave in, without a fight.  “I didn’t mean what I said.”

John, though, didn’t seem to want to let it go.  “Did you get a fresh batch of pregnancy hormones in or something?” he asked Sherlock suddenly.

“What?” the brunette man asked, confused.

“You’ve been exceedingly hard to deal with lately, Sherlock,” John explained from his position by the hearth.  He did not move back to his seat across from Sherlock and the pregnant man took that as a bad sign.  “More so than normal.  And that’s saying something.”

At this Sherlock couldn’t help but bristle, upset that John always tended to brush off issues with what was quickly becoming a fall back excuse.  “No, John,” he said angrily.  “This has nothing to do with hormones or cramps or backaches.  This has to do with you and Lestrade, plain and simple.”

He stared at John as John stared back at him, both glaring at the other, words unspoken between them.  And, suddenly, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut any longer, couldn’t keep the thought at bay for another second.  He had to know, because he would go crazy otherwise.  “Just tell me, truthfully, right now.  I want to hear you say it,” he commanded, voice low in the silence of their flat.  “Do you want to fuck him?”  The question tumbled from his lips, spilling out in a mess of trembling words and short breaths.

As soon as the question hit the air, John’s face went blank with incredulity.  “Sherlock, what the hell has gotten in to you?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Just tell me, John,” he said, instead of answering the blonde’s question.  Because, really, he couldn’t say for certain what had gotten into him.  There was a deep fear that surfaced every time John and Lestrade were together, or texted each other.  An uncontrollable jealousy that took hold of him and wouldn’t let go.  It was making him paranoid and crazy, things he had only ever experienced while on a high, and feeling them sober was definitely not something fun. 

But he had to know.  He had to hear the words, from John’s lips.  Needed to hear John say that he was being stupid and immature and irrational.  For once in his life, he wanted to be those things. 

“Tell me that you still want to be with me,” he told John, his voice a whisper.  “I know I don’t tell you how much you mean to me very often, and I know that it seems like all I do is take and take and take from you,” he admitted, somewhat ashamed.  “But you must still want to be with me, otherwise you would have left already…unless,” his voice trailed off suddenly, and as he sat in John’s comfortable red seat, he felt a flutter of movement inside his belly.  “Is that it?” he asked, turning his bright stare to John, while the other man could do nothing but stand in front of him in stunned silence, unable to speak.  “Are you staying just because of him?”  He indicated his belly with a small movement of his hand.  “Don’t want to leave like your own father did; don’t want to be that kind of man?”

That riled John up, just like he knew it would.  The blonde man took a step away from the hearth, towards Sherlock still sitting in his chair, and when he spoke his voice shook and his hands clenched into fists at his side.  “Sherlock, you just need to shut up.  You don’t know what you’re saying anymore.”

“Just tell me, John!” he exclaimed suddenly, fed up with the game now.  He struggled to stand up because he couldn’t take John looking down at him anymore.  “Tell me that you want to be here, with me, and not out there in some pub with Lestrade, drinking until you can’t remember me anymore and letting him hang all over you!”

At that, John’s eyes went wide, the deep blue looking darker than usual.  “You know about that night?” he asked stupidly, not sure what else to say.

Sherlock sighed in annoyance.  That John thought he could still keep secrets from him, even after all of these years, was not as entertaining as it had once been, months ago.  “Of course I do, John.  I’m not a moron.  I’ve known the inevitable outcome to this scenario ever since it started playing itself out, and I know where it is headed even now.”

But John would not be reasoned with so easily.  “It’s only headed there because that’s where you’re pushing it, Sherlock!” he argued, moving away from the mantle finally to pace across the living room floor tensely.  “If you were a better man to live with, easier to deal with, I wouldn’t have to go out with Lestrade to pubs and drink until I’ve forgotten about the stupid arguments that we get into, or how crazy you make me on a daily basis!  If you weren’t always just thinking about yourself, or needing me to constantly reassure you and show you how things are supposed to be done.  If you could take care of yourself even a little bit, then I wouldn’t be so frustrated all of the time!  If you thought of me as an equal, and not as someone who is just in your way—pushing me aside in favor of your violin or your work—then we wouldn’t be here, now.”

Sherlock opened his mouth to say something scathing back, but caught himself before the words could come out, for once in his life.  He didn’t quite know how they had even gotten to this point in the argument, where truths were coming out and hidden feelings were finally being surfaced.  He wanted to tell John that it was not he who needed to be a better person—it was John who needed to be better, John who needed to come up to Sherlock’s level, but he kept the words to himself.  He kept those and a plethora of other words, other feelings, other thoughts down, because that was his heart, and he would never let it rule his head.  He had warned Irene Adler about that very thing years ago, chastised her and ruined her for being so driven by her feelings for him.  And yet, here he was doing the same thing.

He couldn’t comprehend how they had reached this point in their relationship, where everything seemed to be hanging by a thread between them.  Arguments could be started by the silliest thing, the simplest word…and they would go after each other like cats and dogs, intent on being the one who hurt the other the worst.

He guessed this is what love did to people, but he wouldn’t know for certain—he had never been in love with anyone else before.  The whole concept was a strange one, anyways.  One he had never really understood and had not yet fully grasped onto or comprehended.

Sherlock had always thought of love as a dangerous disadvantage, and it would seem that at this very moment it was proving itself to be true.

“This is insane, Sherlock,” John said finally, stopping his incessant pacing to turn to the brunette man, interrupting his train of thought.  “We’re not accomplishing anything like this.  You want me to tell you that I love you, that I still want to be with you, but you’re not giving me anything back for my troubles.”  He shook his head, his scraggily dirty blond hair falling onto his forehead.  “You never have.  And that’s always been your biggest problem—you don’t know how.”

John had meant the words to hurt him, and Sherlock would be lying if he said that he didn’t accomplish his goal.  But despite that, he wouldn’t give John the satisfaction of seeing that he had succeeded.  “Even after all these years,” Sherlock told him, voice gone soft and deadly in the space between them, “I know that you think love is still a mystery to me.  But I’ve said it before and I will say it again—the chemistry of it is incredibly simple, and yet it’s so very destructive.  It can create a home or tear one apart.” 

He paused for a moment, to give John a chance to hear what he was about to say.  “What’s it going to be, John?” he asked carefully, his voice like thunder in the silence surrounding them.  “Are you going to let him tear ours apart?”

John stared at him for a long moment, face blank and eyes empty of all emotion, uncommon for the blond man.  But he stood before Sherlock, unmoving still, and Sherlock tried with all of his might to read John’s thoughts in the look on his face, the set of his shoulders, the grim line of his mouth.

“I’m going out for a pint,” John said suddenly into the oppressive quiet.  “I’ll come back home when you can prove to me that you aren’t a selfish prick anymore.”

X.X.X

A/N: Next chapter, ‘Acadia’.


	9. Acadia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me, I'm on a roll!!! I don't think I've ever been this consistent with posts! Don't forget that I've posted a chapter a day for the past couple of days, so don't skip any! I'm going to try for a second post today, so be on the lookout for that!

It had hurt him to hear John call him selfish; the word implied that he didn’t do anything for other people and that was not the kind of life he wanted to live, now that he was having a child.

After John left, Sherlock had stomped about the flat angrily, picking up his violin but not able to draw anything out of it other than an off-key sound that shook with too much vibrato as his body trembled with frustration and rage.

Slamming the instrument back into its case with a little more force than he meant, he turned away from the living room window in a huff, walking across the floor to the kitchen.  Maybe working on one of his experiments for a bit would help settle his…

But, no.  He couldn’t focus on anything long enough to get any work done.  All that he kept thinking about were John’s words, harsh and truthful.

His throat tightened as he remembered what John had said to him.  The worst things that Sherlock had thought about the situation he had put himself and John into, the worst fears that he had kept locked up tight so that he didn’t have to face them, and John had thrown them in his face.  Every horrible thing that he had ever thought about himself, and the one person whom he tried to hide all of that from not only thought the same things, too, but threw them back at Sherlock.

With an angry growl in the back of his throat, he bent over the kitchen table where he had pulled out various beakers and petri dishes along with dozens of papers that had hurried, scrawled notes written all over them.  With a swipe of his hands he sent everything tumbling down to the kitchen floor in a flurry of flying papers and broken shards of thin glass and rolling plastic.

Looking down at one edge of the table, he saw that there were still a few hypodermic needles and scalpels that had survived Sherlock’s assault and he quickly grabbed them all up, not even bothering to be careful and not cut or prick himself.  Taking his loot, he made his way heavily back to the living room and twirled on his heel to face the yellow spray painted smiley face which he drawn years ago on Mrs. Hudson’s wall.  The bullet holes were still there—he or John had never bothered to fix that—and the wallpaper was peeling away from its backing along some of the entry points.  Other various sized holes surrounded the face and the bullet marks, but the drawing still continued to smile benignly back at Sherlock, even after all of these years.

With a disgusted sound, Sherlock took one of the needles in his hand and threw it at the target, hearing it sink into the drywall with a satisfying thud.  Three more needles followed it and a few of the scalpels—which were harder to throw straight—and by the time Sherlock’s hands were empty the smiley face looked like a sad little pin cushion, yellow paint dripping down the wall in dried streaks, like blood pouring from its various wounds.

With nothing left to throw any more, Sherlock stood in the middle of his living room, looking about him.  The mess in the kitchen had flowed over into parts of the living room through the doorway and he knew that he would get a stern talking to about the damage done to the wall—again—and he suddenly felt very drained.

He let out a soft sigh.  He didn’t want to prove John right.  He debated cleaning up after himself, but stopped when he saw the extent of the damage his experiments had made on the kitchen floor.  At a very hefty 31 weeks now, he was too big to bend over for long periods of time and clean the whole thing up himself, he knew.

And, really, he didn’t think he could even start to pick everything up without a cup of tea to help him along and keep him awake until John got back, so that they could talk things over and work the whole mess out.

He made his way carefully through the kitchen and to the stove, taking the kettle and filling it up with water, setting it carefully on the counter.  After that he went about getting the service ready, pulling out the sugar and heading to the fridge to get the milk, wanting it all to be set out for when John came home.  But as he opened the refrigerator, he noticed that the gallon of milk right next to his bag of feet was all but empty, and he had to take a calming, relaxing breath so that he didn’t throw a fit again.

_Would nothing work out right tonight,_ he wondered vaguely, shutting the fridge door with a snap and making his way carefully over the mess on the floor again and out of the kitchen.

With a resigned sigh, he walked towards the door to the flat, pulling on his overcoat and wrapping his scarf about his neck.  Tesco’s was still open at this hour, and no doubt the walk would help clear his mind a bit.

Outside, the night was cold and brisk, and Sherlock wrapped his long overcoat tighter about him.  Tesco’s was a bit farther than he would have liked to go this time of night, but he knew it was the only store opened, so he hunched his shoulders against the biting wind and walked away from Baker Street.  The pub John liked to frequent was in the opposite direction, so he knew he wouldn’t be running into the man on his way to the store or back.  He ducked his head and made his way resolutely down the street, lost in his own thoughts.

Tesco’s was nearly empty at that time of night.  The bright lights of the market were glaring after he had come in from the dark street, and the only people milling about the aisles were the stock boys and a few late-night shoppers.  Sherlock made his way swiftly to the back of the store, where their dairy was, and stood for a moment looking at the selection of milk before him.

He hadn’t realized there would be so many choices….

John usually took care of all of the shopping—as well as the cleaning and the other domestic things—and Sherlock had not been aware that milk came in so many forms.  The few times he had promised John he would pick up any groceries it was always something simple like beans or a roll of toilet paper.  But this was something else entirely.

Whole milk, reduced fat milk, skim milk.  1%, 2%, soy, almond, lactose free.

He didn’t even know what he was looking at anymore.  He tried to find one that had the same color label as the one he thought he remembered from their refrigerator, but ended up giving up the pursuit half way through and just picking up a carton, exasperated and feeling like a fool.

Maybe John was right after all.  Maybe he couldn’t take care of this child he was about to have.  If he couldn’t even pick out a carton of milk without knowing what it was he was about to buy, how on earth was he possibly going to do everything else?

He shook his head to rid himself of the frustrating, milk-induced doubts that were popping up and took his carton of liquid to the front of the store to pay for it, mad once again that the trip had not been as simple and as calming as he had hoped it would be.

While he was paying he heard a loud, low rumble from outside; one that shook the large glass windows on the front of the store in their panes and sent a tremor through the floor of the building.  Both he and the checkout girl turned to look out of the large window in front of them, looking at the black night sky as best they could.

_Strange_ , Sherlock thought.  _I don’t remember hearing it was going to rain_.  It certainly hadn’t looked it as the pregnant man had been walking over here.

He thanked the girl as she handed him his change back and rushed out of the store, intent on getting home before it started to pour so that he wouldn’t have to waste the money on a cab.  But as he got closer to Baker Street he began to notice something strange.  More people were out on the streets than there had previously been, and they all seemed to be going in the opposite direction from him, away from Baker Street.  The buzz of their conversations as they passed by him were hurried and frantic and, although he couldn’t hear what they were saying as they ran past him, a strange feeling began to grow in the center of his chest, a tightening of his heart and a constricting of his lungs that was making it harder to breathe.  In the distance, the shrill sound of police sirens could be heard, and they seemed to grow closer with every step that Sherlock was taking towards home now, and the feeling in his chest grew.

And then, as he turned the corner and stepped onto the road that Baker Street dead ended into, he could see it.  221b was still a few blocks down Baker Street, but the warm orange glow that glimmered against the black night sky and made his heart stop in his chest covered everything in a bright, moving light, and Sherlock couldn’t tell from this distance exactly which building it was coming off of.  He knew there was only one thing that could make such a large luminosity against all of the other light pollution of the city.  He had seen it once before, just once, years ago when a bomb had been planted in the building across from 221b Baker Street.

His feet began moving faster than he realized he could travel 31 weeks into his pregnancy, but there was an insane need to get back to 221b and _see_ for himself, see if he was right, see if it was true, see if he was mistaken.

God, he hoped he was mistaken.

But as he made his way through the crowd that was being ushered away from the street and around the corner of the intersecting road at the other end of Baker Street he could see even from that distance that he wasn’t mistaken.  He managed to push his way through the still group of people that had gathered to watch and he reached the front lines, where police officers were setting up barricades and trying to keep all of the people on the street at bay and at a safe distance from what was happening.

As his eyes fell on the sight before him, past the barricades and the row of police officers and squad cars his heart dropped to his feet and he could do nothing but stand there and stare, just like everyone else.

221 Baker Street no longer stood solemn and stagnant against the black London sky.  Now, instead, it was burning.  A roaring fire that was consuming everything that it touched.  He could barely even see the brick façade of the building behind the flames.  All that was left was a wall of fire that was reaching towards the dark heavens above it, casting an orange glow over everything on the whole block.  There were two fire trucks on the street in front of 221 already, and the firemen were focusing their high powered water hoses on the edges of the fire, the corners of the structure, protecting the surrounding buildings from the flames as best they could.  There was nothing they could do except wait for the flames to burn themselves out.  No amount of water would make a difference in that fire, even Sherlock could see that.

Nothing could make a difference.  221 Baker Street was burning to the ground right before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Xxx

The pub was nearly empty at that late hour during the middle of the week, but John didn’t mind.  In fact, he preferred it.  It meant that he didn’t have to sit around a crowd of people and try to listen to his own thoughts through the din of other conversations.  If he had wanted to get drunk, he would have preferred a large, loud crowd, so that he could lose himself in the sound of people all around him.  But he didn’t want to get drunk.  Not tonight.  Not after that argument.

Instead, he just wanted to drink enough to get that fuzzy, light-headed feeling that made things seem less stressful than they really were.

He was almost there, too.  The bottom of this mug should take him the rest of the way…

As he tipped his head back to drain his pint, he heard the bartender call out loudly through the near-empty pub, “Oy, John!  Don’t you live over there on Baker Street?”

“Yeah,” John shouted back with a frown.  He looked across the pub at the bar, where Larry was distractedly cleaning up the bar top, his attention more on the telly he had on than the job he was doing.  From his seat, John squinted at the tv screen.  He could see it was a news report of a residential fire, but he sat too far away to hear what the reporter was saying or read the tiny print on the screen from that distance.

Thankfully, though, Larry commentated for him.  “Your street is on the news,” he explained, not taking his eyes off of the screen.  “Looks like some poor sod left their stove on.  Blew up a whole building.”

The hand that had been holding his thick glass beer mug went slack, dropping the heavy cup onto the tabletop where it bounced and rolled onto the ground, shattering into chunky pieces at John’s feet as the man stood from his chair in a flash, the flimsy wooden seat falling backwards from the force of John getting up.

He didn’t even bother to ask which building on Baker Street it was.  He knew.  Deep down in his gut, he knew.  It was the same feeling he had had in Afghanistan, during the raid that he had been a part of right before he had gotten shot.

It was a deep sense of foreboding, and a fear that couldn’t quite be explained.

He was out of the pub in a flash, running down the near-empty street as fast as he could, feet pounding away steadily on the pavement and lungs taking in practiced puffs of air as he ran so that he would not get a stitch in his side.

And as his shoes slapped out a steady rhythm on the ground beneath him, two words rang over and over in his head, in beat with the sound of his feet. 

_Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God_.

As he ran back towards Baker Street, his hand automatically went to the pocket of his trousers, shaking uncontrollably as he reached for his cell phone, trying desperately to dig it out of the stiff denim.  But the tremble of his fingers was too great, and he couldn’t get a good grip on the slim, hard plastic.  After a few more tries he finally got his hand to clench around the device and he pulled it out and attempted to dial Sherlock’s cell number, missing it three times as the tremor in his fingers grew stronger.  But he eventually got it right and he was slightly relieved when the line began to ring over the earpiece.

Surely, if the phone had been destroyed in the fire, he wouldn’t even have gotten a ring back?

The line continued to buzz in his ear for a long while as John continued to run down streets, towards his home, and he was just about to give up and end the call when he heard the soft click of someone picking up the line.

“Sherlock?” he yelled into the phone.  “Sherlock?  _SHERLOCK_!”  But the line stayed silent and he all but cried into the phone, his voice shaking so badly that he could barely understand what he was saying.  “Say something to me, for the love of God.  Anything, just so that I know—”

“I went to go get milk.”

A cold relief washed over him at hearing Sherlock’s unmistakable dulcet tone over the line.  He let out a great gasp of air and the end of his exhalation bubbled in something close to a maniacal chuckle at the feeling of hearing Sherlock’s voice. 

“What?” he asked the man, because in his relief he realized that he hadn’t even comprehended what Sherlock had just said to him.

“Milk,” Sherlock repeated, and through the static of the line and his own breathing as he continued to run relentlessly towards the man who was speaking to him, he could hear that Sherlock’s deep baritone voice was somewhat flat sounding and distant.  “We were out, and I wanted to do something for you, so that you could see that I’m not completely selfish, like you…like you said I was,” he finished in a whisper, and he sounded slightly out of breath himself.  “So I went to Tesco’s to get some milk.”

John rounded a corner so fast that he almost slipped on the still-damp concrete from a patch of melting snow, but he quickly regained his footing, clutching his phone tighter to his ear so that he didn’t lose his grip on it.  “You were out?” John asked, because he wanted to hear Sherlock tell him yet again that he was not burning to death inside their flat.  “You weren’t there?”

“I never go get milk,” came Sherlock’s impassive reply over the line.

He was in shock, John could tell even over the phone.

“Where are you now?” he asked Sherlock.

“Outside,” Sherlock said simply.  “On the sidewalk.”  He seemed incapable of saying more than a few simple words.

“Don’t move from there, Sherlock, don’t move,” John instructed him.  “You're in shock and someone needs to see to you.  I’ll be over there right now—I’m just a few blocks away.”

He didn’t hang up the phone because, silly as it seemed, the mobile was his only link to Sherlock right now, to knowing that he was okay and making sure nothing else happened to him.  He didn’t speak any more, focusing all of his energy on sprinting the last few blocks to his flat.  Sherlock didn’t say anything into the line, either, but neither did he hang up, and John swore to himself that as long as Sherlock kept the line open he would, too.

And as he got closer to home, he saw and smelt the fire—a strong, wild smell of burning stone and wood that settled on the cold winter air like a warning.

There were dozens of people out on the street, milling about pointlessly and staring wide-eyed at the destruction of building 221 in front of them.  John hardly gave the building a passing glance.  He was intent on only one thing, finding only one person…

His eyes fell on Sherlock after a moment, finding him even through all of the people around.  He was standing alone, off to one side of the crowd, but as close to the barricades that the police officers had put up as he could get.  His head was tilted back as he watched the flames dance along the top of the building, consuming everything now, and his arms were sitting slackly against his sides, one hand still gripping onto a half gallon of milk ridiculously.

John let out a sigh of relief at actually seeing Sherlock unharmed and whole in front of him, and he pushed his way roughly through the crowd until he made it to the brunette man, his hands instantly coming up to grasp at Sherlock’s shoulders and turn the man towards him, so that he could check him over.

“Sherlock—Sherlock, look at me, there you go,” John said, pulling the brunette’s attention away from the fire so that he could look at Sherlock’s eyes.  “Feeling okay?  Breathing’s fine?”

Sherlock gave a dull nod of his head at each of John’s questions but, although his attention was on something else entirely, he seemed fine.

“How long had you been gone?”

“A few minutes.  Just a few minutes.”

“When you left, you didn’t see anybody outside?  Nobody suspicious?  Nobody stopped you on the street to talk to you?”

“I didn’t see anybody.  I didn’t notice anything.”  His eyes drifted over to the fire again, reflecting the color of the orange glow before him and looking almost cat-like.  His tone was still dazed, and John could see that his face was paler than normal, even in the strange light that the fire was giving off.  “How is that possible?” he asked, seemingly speaking to himself.

“It’s all right, Sherlock.  It’s okay.  That doesn’t matter,” John tried to reassure him.  “The only thing that matters is that you’re safe.  You and—oh Jesus, where’s Mrs. Hudson?!”

John made to move towards the barricade, intent on running through 221 Baker Street until he found their landlady, dead or alive, but Sherlock had thankfully recovered enough of himself to reach a hand out to stop John, explaining quickly, “She had a date tonight, John.  Mr. Chatterjee from Speedy’s was taking her out to celebrate his divorce.  Don’t you remember hearing her getting ready earlier?”

“No, I don’t remember,” John said, trying to fight off Sherlock’s grip on his shoulder.  He couldn’t believe that Mrs. Hudson was safe from the fire, not until he could see it for himself.  He had to find out, he had to go look for her.  But Sherlock’s grip on his shoulder tightened and he dragged John backwards, towards him.  John could do nothing but turn back to him, desperate.  “Are you sure, Sherlock?” he asked, terrified.  “ _Positive_?”

“Yes,” Sherlock reassured.  “Very sure.  She left with an overnight bag.  They were probably going to stay at a cheap motel to celebrate,” he explained.  “Don’t worry, John.”

As much as he didn’t want to think about Mrs. Hudson staying overnight at a sleazy motel with Mr. Chatterjee from Speedy’s, he still sighed in relief.  No words could describe how he felt at having Sherlock beside him, and knowing that Mrs. Hudson was safe, miles away from this mess, while he watched the destruction that the fire created burn through everything else in his life.

But at least he had them, Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson.  At least they were safe.  And he would take that over all the material objects he was losing right before his eyes any day of the year.

He reached a hand out to Sherlock, wanting to feel him, to know for sure that he was here with John.  The tall man seemed to want the same, and he leaned into John, resting his head on John’s shorter shoulder, and the doctor’s hand wrapped around his wide waist, sitting gently on Sherlock’s stomach.

The two could do nothing but stand there out in the middle of the road on Baker Street, holding each other and staring up into the night sky, watching the destruction of the building until the early hours of the morning, when the flames finally began to die out and the dawn began to shed light on the wreck that had once been their home.

Xxx

It was gone.

All of it.

He stood in the middle of the pile of rubble that had been 221 Baker Street and for once his mind was quiet, still.  No deductions, no configurations, no theories; nothing to solve, or answer, or understand.

Just this.

This bleak, horrible emptiness.

All of it was gone.

The late morning light shone brightly on everything around him, hiding nothing, and Sherlock listened as the fire marshal spoke to him and John about what they had found earlier that morning.  A deliberately cut gas main and an ignition point, at the back of the building.

The fire marshal’s words went in and out of focus as Sherlock stood there, staring at the destruction around him.  He was so tired.  He and John had not left Baker Street since they had met each other outside on the street last night and watched their home burn to the ground.  And now, almost 12 hours later and not having gotten any sleep since the previous night, Sherlock found that he couldn’t concentrate on the marshal’s words for a second longer.

He stepped away from John and the other man carefully as they stood on the sidewalk in front of what had once been 221 Baker Street, picking his way slowly up the front steps and through the front entryway that was empty now, the door burned to ashes that crunched softly beneath his feet as he stepped on them.

The whole building had been consumed by the arson.  Its center had been 221a, and that was where the worst of the devastation sat, but it had spread quickly through the old building, burning through the other flats on either side of 221 and eating away at them until only the foundation of the whole building was left, with each of the four main outer walls damaged and crumbling, but still standing mostly whole in some parts.

But their flat….

The basic structure of Mrs. Hudson’s floor was still there, since it was at ground level, but the steps up to 221b were only half there, a burnt, blackened and crumbling staircase that led to nowhere.  The floor to their flat had caved in completely.  There were bits of their furniture mixed in with Mrs. Hudson’s, things that were barely recognizable but that they knew by the shape of them.  Their bed, which had belonged only to Sherlock once, long ago.  John’s squishy, red, patterned seat which had sat in their living room across from Sherlock’s more somber gray leather one, always warm and comfortable and inviting after a long day at the surgery or putting up with Sherlock.  In what would have been Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen, they found their own refrigerator, along with hers, black and hollow on the inside, reeking of burnt human flesh from the latest experiment Sherlock had been waiting to do.  Through the rubble, he also found the remains of his human skull, blackened and brittle and falling apart.  Half of it was missing, turned to ash around it, and he only recognized it because he knew what bone looked like after it had caught fire.

But everything else….

John’s favorite tea service, which had been his mother’s long ago and which Harry had given to him shortly after he and Sherlock had moved in together.  Sherlock’s violin, which had been with the man for over half of his life and which cost more than John’s yearly salary at the surgery.  The secret pack of cigarettes that Sherlock hadn’t touched in over 8 months which had been taped to the underside of the kitchen table.  The beautiful driftwood crib that Sherlock had spent hours obsessing over at _Le Petite Boutique_ weeks ago and that he and John had spent the better part of a day trying to put together.

Completely gone, as if it had never even existed.

Staring at the rubble of his home, he felt strange.  As he stood in the middle of the building and looked into the parts of 221 Baker Street that he had never been able to see into before, he felt exposed.  As if the arson had not only torn down the flat, but something else, something far less tangible than a few walls and a floor and roof.

They had nowhere to go, now.  Everything that they owned had been inside 221b Baker Street.  Their clothes, their food, their memories.

Their future.

They had spent years here.  They had become friends, colleagues and eventually something so much more inside these walls.  This was where they had hid from the world when it all got to be too much, where they had dropped their guards around each other, where they had become more than just Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective.  Baker Street had been Sherlock’s safe haven, his fortress.  He had kissed John for the first time on that staircase, and John had taken him in their living room not long after, a few awkward days in which they danced around each other childishly, avoiding eye contact and stealing touches.

And now there was nothing left.  Nothing but a charred blankness that surrounded every part of him and a cold gust of wind that blew through the eaves of the emptiness all around, no walls up to stop it.

What were they to do now?  Where were they to turn?  They had nothing if they didn’t have Baker Street.  There was absolutely nothing….

With a great jolt Sherlock suddenly remembered the safe that had been in their bedroom, heavy and double insulated and fireproof.

He moved as fast as he could to the area of the destruction where their bedroom would have been, a story above their heads as they stood on ground level, and Sherlock had to toss aside burnt scaffoldings and ceiling beams but underneath a pile of ashes and wood chunks he found it.  The outside was charred a disturbing looking black but the door was still shut tight.

He reached out to the little numbered knob on the front to unlock it but all of the digits had been burnt to a crisp, and it took Sherlock a long moment to get the position of the tumbler just right and get the thing opened.

But once he did, he let out a great sigh of relief.  There, inside the blackened strongbox, was all of his paperwork and notebooks from his pregnancy, untouched by the fire and looking as pristine and new as the day that Sherlock had put them in there for the first time.  He searched around in the safe for a bit more, digging through it.  John’s bullets were in there, as well, and the other two guns were still securely hidden about their persons.  The most important paperwork that they had—John’s honorable discharge certificate, their birth certificates, their notarized living wills, stating each other as power of medical attorney should something dire happen to either one of them, among a few other things—was all there, not a wrinkle, not a tear, not a burn on them.

A small laugh escaped Sherlock’s throat, giddy and slightly maniacal in its intensity.  John hurried quickly over to him, stumbling over what used to be a bed and practically falling down beside Sherlock.

“What is it?” he asked.  “What did you find?”

“All of my papers,” he answered, slightly breathless.  “They are all okay.”

John stared at him for a moment, face blank and mouth slightly open in shock.  “Well, I’m very happy for you, Sherlock, but I’m sorry I can’t be as excited about it as you are.”  His tone was bitter and there was an air of scolding about it, but Sherlock chose to ignore it.  “We don’t even have a change of clothes to help us along, and we have nowhere to stay.  How can you smile at a time like this?”

But John’s words did nothing to impede the grin that was continuing to grow on Sherlock’s lips as he continued to stare at and stroke the notebooks and papers tucked away safely in the burnt strongbox.  “Don’t worry, John,” he said dismissively, trying to be reassuring.  “Mycroft will no doubt give us all of the assistance that we need until we can get back on our feet again.  And we had renter’s insurance.”  He gave a small shrug of his shoulders.  “Everything can be replaced.  And everything that can’t is right here, in this safe.  It will be fine.”

But John was unwilling to believe so.  “Mycroft?” he asked incredulously, and Sherlock could understand why.  “He’s going to let us stay with him?”  ‘ _We are GOING to stay with him?_ ’ was the unasked question sitting on the tip of John’s tongue that hung between them in the cold air that surrounded them.

“Of course, John,” Sherlock said simply.  “We have nowhere else to go.”  He knew better than anyone that he could not get on with Mycroft for more than a few minutes before they began nitpicking at each other like little schoolboys, but he and John didn’t really seem to have any other options at the moment.  So he had resigned himself to the good will that he knew Mycroft was going to offer up.  Just because he had not gotten the text yet didn’t mean that his brother was not going to offer, he knew this.

“Okay.”  John’s voice was calm—a little too calm—and he seemed to be speaking to himself, as if hearing his own words would soothe him.  “So we’ll stay with Mycroft for a bit.  And then?  What will we do after that?”

Sherlock stood from his crouching position over the safe, a sharp pain already growing in his back.  John stood with him and Sherlock stared down at the blonde man, dark blue eyes surrounded by wrinkles that looked so much more prominent in the ashy gray light that reflected from the burnt rubble all around them. 

“Isn’t the answer simple, John?” he asked, frowning slightly.  “We’ll rebuild Baker Street, of course.”

“Rebuild—” John repeated, shocked.  He couldn’t even bring himself to finish his sentence.  It died on his thin lips as quickly as it flitted through his mind.  “Sherlock, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” he asked the doctor, confused.

“Because,” John replied sharply, voice suddenly angry as he looked about them, throwing his arms out to be sure that Sherlock could see what was around them, as if he had forgotten what had happened.  “This was the scene of an arson!” he explained.  “Whoever did this was intent on killing us!  Don’t you understand?”

“I understand completely, John.”  Sherlock’s deep voice was like stone, hard and unmovable, and he loomed over the doctor, hurt and angry that John could think that he would possibly do anything other than rebuild Baker Street.  This was his _home_ , and no one, _no one_ , was going to take it away from him.  Not after everything else he had been through. 

“I understand that I have been talked about and picked at like a lab rat and bullied and assaulted and pushed to my very limits,” he continued to explain to John, seething in fury and frustration as he remembered everything that he had been through up until now, and thought of everything he still had to go through to get to the end of it, so that he could come out whole on the other side.  “And I will not give up now, just because one more thing has happened to me—to us.  I want Baker Street back.  They will not chase me out of my home, John.”

John stared at him for a long moment, at a loss for words, and Sherlock looked right back at him, holding his ground.  And even though it hurt him to have John’s dark blue, sad eyes gaze at him in such a tired, uncomprehending way, he knew that he was right, and he was not going to back out of this one.

“Yeah, all right,” John finally said, softly, giving in to Sherlock, his resolve crumbling in the face of the brunette’s tenacious presence.  “I’m going to go see if there’s anything else that might not have been ruined.”  And he walked silently away from Sherlock, leaving the pregnant man alone to shift through the rest of the rubble hopelessly, knowing that neither of them would find anything but trying to, nonetheless.

After a few minutes of moving about the ruin of the building and searching through the ash and chunks of burnt wood he gave up, standing upright and stretching out the stiff muscles that were cramping up in his lower back.  As he stood there, the wind blowing around him, something caught his eye as it fluttered in the cold breeze, stuck between a piece of granite and a plank of wood.  It was white and small against the gray and black of the burnt stone and pieces of building all around him and he reached out to pick it up, having to bend carefully so that he didn’t trip over the large chunks of what looked like it had once been a door.  But he was able to grab it and bring it towards him, his long fingers curling around something flat and thin, a paper of some sort.  No, too stiff to just be a piece of paper.  A picture, then.

He wiped away the dust and ash that sat in a thick layer over it, and his heart stopped in his chest.

It was his first sonogram picture, burnt and browned at the edges, but otherwise whole and unscathed.  There were a few tears and wrinkles, but the majority of the picture was still distinguishable, and Sherlock could clearly see the small, bean-shape of his baby in the squiggly black and white lines of the photo.  His fingers continued to brush over the image, even after all of the ash had been swept away, caressing it softly with shaking fingertips.

He couldn’t believe it.  The odds of this little picture surviving when nothing else had were astronomical.  Improbable.  Unpredictable.

Yet here it sat, in his shaking hands.  Safe and whole and only slightly damaged.

“What did you find?” he heard John call out from behind him.

He held it out for John to see, and the blonde man made his way cautiously over to Sherlock and then reached over to take the picture from his hand.  When he saw what it was, a smile split his face, genuine and wonderful in its intensity.  It erased all the worry lines on John’s face and Sherlock could see the dimples in the corners of his mouth, which he only got when his smile was big enough to reach epic proportions.

“I take that as a good sign, yeah?” John asked, his smile so wide it almost hindered his words.

“The best I could think of,” Sherlock answered, a smile of his own answering John’s.

X.X.X

A/N: Next chapter, ‘Good to You’.


	10. Good To You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't think I would actually be able to do two posts in one day, but lookie here! These last few chapters have not been beta'd, and have been posted without the meticulous editing that the earlier ones have gone through. Be sure not to skip any chapters; I've been pretty much spewing them out the past couple of days. All of your comments and kudos are just making my day, and I want to thank you all so much for enjoying this story.

It was awkward accepting hospitality from Mycroft.  And John could see that the elder Holmes was uncomfortable giving it, as he didn’t quite know what to do with his guests when they first entered his home.  He served them tea and had Anthea show them around, but he didn’t spend a lot of time with them, just enough to send over his personal physician to see that Sherlock really was okay.  Other than the need of a long night’s sleep, a good meal, and a simple bath, the doctor pronounced that Sherlock was in good condition and left them alone, sharing a guest bedroom that was bigger than the size of their living room at Baker Street.  The adjoining bathroom alone was as large as their bedroom at 221b, and the tub in it looked large enough to fit three or four grown men.

“Mycroft sure does know how to live, I’ll give him that,” John said with a low whistle of appreciation as he looked over their new accommodations. 

Sherlock, on the other hand, seemed less than impressed with their rooms, and he glared around himself from his position on the bed, relaxing against the plush pillows and resting his hands over his ever-growing belly.  “Yes, it’s positively disgusting, isn’t it?” he asked, a curl to his lips.

“Don’t be jealous, Sherlock,” John teased, ceasing his search of their rooms and heading back over to the bed, crawling into it and settling down beside Sherlock.  This would all take a bit of getting used to—he had been struggling on a soldier’s pension for a while before he had moved in with Sherlock, and even after he found his position at the surgery and started forcing Sherlock to take payments from their clients, they had never had a lot of money once damages to 221b, recompenses to the city, fines to Scotland Yard, take out, and Sherlock’s need for shiny, expensive science equipment were all taken into account.

He lounged back on the pillow-top mattress and pushed back against the plush feather pillows, sighing heavily.  “I could get used to this,” he said sleepily, feeling the day’s stresses start to slip away, even if only slightly.

“Don’t get too used to it,” Sherlock grumbled, and John opened an eye to look at the brunette man and see that he was falling asleep as well.  “We’re not going to be here for very long.”

John didn’t have the energy to argue with him.  After the day that they had just had, he didn’t really have the energy for anything.  Before another word could be spoken, both men drifted off to sleep, not even bothering to crawl under the covers, leaning against one another as they let exhaustion take them.

Xxx

Sherlock _hated_ staying with Mycroft.  It was like living back with his mother as a child, only worse. 

Dinner was served promptly at 7, and if you were more than thirty minutes late sitting down at the table, you had to wait until the staff had cleared everything up and put the leftovers away before you could eat.

“This isn’t a restaurant, Sherlock,” Mycroft would scold.  “You can’t just come and go as you please and expect to be catered to.  This household runs on a very tight schedule.”

And, as if that weren’t enough, Sherlock was now getting fussed over in a way that even John had given up on after a couple of months into Sherlock’s pregnancy, for fear of the heated arguments such actions always brought on.

He was chided for eating too many sweets and not enough fruits and vegetables, he was scolded for spending too much time on his feet that day, he was even reproved for not getting enough sleep.

And then there were the messes.

Sherlock had never been a neat man.  His genius wouldn’t allow it.  Who had time for picking up after oneself when there were theories to be proven, codes to be cracked, problems to be solved?  All of the strange props he used for cases usually got dropped wherever was most convenient when he managed to finally get home after a case, and books, notepads, and loose sheets of paper generally covered every square inch of desk space, floor space and even the walls.  It was something John had grown accustomed to—over a long period of time—but Mycroft seemed adamant that his home not be treated as another Baker Street.

“I am letting you and your beau,” Mycroft gave a sidelong sneer towards John, “stay at my home because you have nowhere else to go,” he chastised Sherlock one evening over dinner for yet another mess in his mudroom, where Sherlock had come inside after slaughtering a crate full of chickens to document the blood splatter pattern on a line of trees outside.  “But I would ask that you treat it with a little respect, Sherlock.” 

For his part, the brunette had thought he was being very considerate, undressing in the mudroom so that he didn’t track blood all over Mycroft’s Berber, and leaving his clothes on the floor for one of the maids to pick up, so that he wouldn’t drip anything anywhere or smear something on the walls.

Mycroft, obviously, didn’t see it that way.

“History will judge me harshly for not having killed you in your sleep when we were younger and I had the chance,” the tall brunette detective responded, giving Mycroft a petulant look and making an immature face at the man.

John, on the other hand, would simply sit awkwardly in between them at the dinner table, biting his tongue and keeping silent for fear that the Holmes brother’s wrath would be turned on him.  But as Sherlock and Mycroft continued to quibble at the table like temperamental children, John could only sigh into his soup and hope like hell that they wouldn’t have to spend much longer at Mycroft’s tender mercies.

Xxx

“Were you guys always like this as kids?” John asked after dinner was over, and they had thankfully been excused to their bedroom.  The blonde man didn’t know how much more of the bickering he could have stood, before going off on the two brothers like a fed up parent.

“No,” Sherlock answered, much to John’s astonishment.  The doctor couldn’t believe that there was a time that the two Holmes siblings ever got along.  And it turned out he was right as Sherlock concluded, “He was actually much worse when we were younger.”

“How is that even possible?” John asked, disbelieving.  He moved about the room, getting undressed and digging through a shopping bag that sat among many others on the floor of their new bedroom.  The two men had gone shopping for more clothes the other day and had yet to put anything up into the dressers that were in the guest room.  John just couldn’t seem to bring himself to do that—it felt too permanent for his taste, and he was sure that Sherlock felt the same way.  When he had rifled through the bag for a moment, he finally pulled out a new set of pajamas and proceeded to put them on as he listened to Sherlock speak.

“He had the worst mother-hen complex I’ve ever seen,” the brunette replied airily, moving to sit on the bed, using all of the pillows—even John’s—to prop himself up against the headboard.  “Now that you see what I had to deal with when I was younger, don’t you agree that I don’t get nearly enough credit for managing not to be a violent psychopath?”

“I wouldn’t say you’ve managed it _entirely_ ,” John teased, smiling as he gave his partner a sidelong glance.

Sherlock looked at him with incongruity for a moment before both men burst into peals of laughter.

Suddenly, through the laughing, there came a soft knock on the bedroom door, and John had to tell the person to enter through a mouthful of giggles.

Anthea opened their door and poked her head through, a smile on her face as she listened to the two men laugh.  “I forgot to give you two your mail today,” she said softly.

“Mail?” John asked, frowning and motioning for the woman to come in.  It had only been a couple of days since the fire had burnt down Baker Street, and no one except Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade knew where they were staying.  John hadn’t even put in for a change of address at the post office yet.

“Well, most of it doesn’t have an address label—just a name, since the letters were just getting dropped off at the pro-Synath headquarters,” Anthea replied, lifting her hands to reveal a huge stack of letters clutched between her perfectly manicured fingers.  “They are the ones who brought it to Mr. Hol—er, Mycroft, earlier today.”

“Who on earth could possibly be sending us mail?” John asked, his frown deepening as he reached out to take the letters from Anthea.  His eyes widened in disbelief when she handed him the entirety of the stack.  There had to be 30 envelopes there, at least.

“All of this?” he asked, stupidly.

“Uh-huh,” Anthea replied with a smile.  “You boys are very popular.”

Neither one replied as John took the letters over to where Sherlock was lying on the bed, shuffling through them together.  Most were addressed to Sherlock, but some had both of their names on it.

“They’ve all been checked over and cleared as safe.  I’ll just leave you to it, then,” Anthea said softly, but neither one of the men were really paying any attention to her.  When she slipped out of the room and left them alone, they didn’t even notice.

They went about each opening a letter, silence reigning over the room broken only by the harsh sound of ripping paper as the envelopes were torn open.  John pulled out a Hallmark card that had ‘Sorry for your loss’ written in calligraphy across the top with some generic picture painted on the front.  Inside, the card was mostly blank except for the standard writing that each card was anointed with, and a handwritten note that said ‘Be strong and soldier on’ in plain, blue ink.  He frowned down at the card for a moment in curiosity before Sherlock’s voice caught his attention.

“John, come look at this,” he brunette man’s deep baritone said softly.

John set the greeting card down on the bedside table and looked over at what Sherlock was showing him.  “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s from Scotland Yard,” Sherlock replied, a deep frown crinkling his forehead beneath his dark curls.  “It’s a check made out to _Le Petite Boutique._   In the memo it states that it’s for a crib.”

“A crib?” John repeated, at a loss for words.  “Why would they do that?”

“I haven’t the slightest—” Sherlock trailed off as he shuffled through the large stack of mail that Anthea had handed them, slowing as he saw unfamiliar name after unfamiliar name on the return addresses and John did the same with the pile in his own hand.  Each letter in the stack was from someone they did not know, and Sherlock slowly opened up another one of the envelopes to see what was inside.

A letter came out on a folded piece of notebook paper, wrinkled and torn in some spots.

“ ‘I’m so sorry for your loss’,” Sherlock read out loud while John listened intently.  “ ‘I know how devastating fires can be to a life.  I lost my 4 year old daughter to one 10 years ago.  Here is something to help get you back on your feet.  It’s not much, but I know that right now every little bit will help.  God bless you and keep you and your baby safe.’ ”

Sherlock dipped his fingers back into the envelope and pulled out a bank note, a small amount, but he stared at it in disbelief nonetheless.

John watched him the whole time, reading the letter upside down even as Sherlock read it out loud, and he gave the brunette man the same unbelievable stare that Sherlock was giving him.

Together, silently, they began to open up each of the letters that they had received, pulling out more notes of encouragement, a bit more money, and a few more generic, store bought ‘Sorry for your loss’ greeting cards.

“I don’t believe this,” John murmured as he opened up the last letter and read the note inside, from a homosexual man who told them that his husband had been beaten to death by gay rights protestors two years ago, urging John and Sherlock not to let anybody ruin their lives and the life of their child.  “This is incredible.  These people…they don’t even know us.  Why are they doing this for us?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock answered him, his tone soft and quiet.  He looked down at the mess of notes and money that he had spread out around himself on the bed as he had continued to open letters, unbelieving and unsure of everything around him.

He wanted to say that it was because the good inherent in all people was something complex and not to be underestimated, but he honestly had no clue.  He had never been watching the news one day, and upon seeing a heart wrenching report decided to send a complete stranger a personalized letter telling them not to give up hope, or even giving them money.  This sort of compassion in a human’s nature was out of his realm of understanding; he had no other way to describe it.

“Sherlock, these people…” John stared at the letters around them, too, all of them opened now, and lying on the bed like little white promises of hope and courage.  “This is amazing.”

“Yes,” Sherlock said simply, because he had no other words.  “Yes, it is.”

Xxx

“I don’t understand why I have to be there, John,” Sherlock said, his tone unhappy and his scowl childish, much like the cross of his arms as he sat in the library of Mycroft’s house, where he was spending most of his time if he wasn’t on a case.

“Because it’s a baby shower for _your_ baby, Sherlock, that’s why,” John said with an exasperated roll of his eyes as he reached out to pluck the book that Sherlock was using to cover his face with, so that he didn’t have to look at John while the blonde man chastised him.

When John took his book, the brunette man gave him a scowl, well and truly annoyed now.  “What bearing does that have on anything?” he asked John crossly.  “It’s your baby too—you can be there without me.”

“Sherlock, you’re the one who is carrying the baby!” John cried out, annoyed.  “We can’t have a baby shower without the baby!”

“It’s stupid and frivolous,” Sherlock stated simply, getting up from his seat with some difficulty and going to the shelves to search out another book.  “And I don’t see why I should be subjected to it!”

John sighed and tried a different tactic, laying down Sherlock’s book on the side table next to the wing backed chair by the fire and softening his tone.  “Sherlock, these people want to do something nice for you—it wasn’t my idea.”  He walked over to where the other man was standing, in one corner of the library as he skimmed slowly over the spines of the leatherbound books, long fingers delicately tracing names. 

“I knew you wouldn’t want a baby shower,” John pushed.  “But Mrs. Hudson got a hold of Lestrade and Mycroft and wouldn’t leave the idea alone.  And even a few of the pro-Synaths have been contacting me, asking if we were going to have one.”  He reached out a hand to grasp Sherlock’s shoulder gently and turn the brunette man around to look at him.  “This is part of being pregnant, and you are going to have to deal with it just like you’ve dealt with the nausea and the backaches and the cramps.”

The pregnant man was silent for a long moment, and only the noises of the logs crackling in the fire sounded between them.  Finally, Sherlock gave in with a sigh and a drop of his shoulders.  “Fine,” he said bitterly.  “I’ll go.  But I won’t be happy about it.”

“You never are,” John said with a triumphant smile.

Xxx

The baby shower just so happened to coincide with Sherlock’s 34th week of pregnancy.

He had made it 34 weeks, and he was beginning to feel a distinct, unshakable anxiety as he knew that in no more than 6 weeks, he would be through with this; he would be at the end of his term and he would be giving birth….

The thought alone was enough to make him want to vomit in nervousness and fear, but he spent the better part of most days trying not to think about it.

It would be easy to ignore that little fact today, though, since today he would be subjected to something much worse than labor and delivery.

“Ready, Sherlock?” came John’s voice from the doorway as the blonde man opened the door to their bedroom and poked his head through.  He had been downstairs helping get everything set up for the party and greeting the first of their guests while Sherlock had been taking his time getting dressed for his ‘party’.

The tall brunette man gave himself one more look in the full-length mirror, tugging down the tails of his cyan colored dress shirt over his charcoal gray trousers.  He was getting so big now that he couldn’t wear his suit jackets any longer, because they did nothing but make him look overweight and lumpy instead of pregnant.  But there wasn’t really much that didn’t make him look lumpy nowadays, he thought with a sigh.

“Let’s get this over with,” Sherlock said to his reflection, making a grimace at himself before he turned away from the mirror and faced John.

“If it makes you feel any better,” John shot him a charming little smile, “I think you look very dashing.”

Sherlock smiled at the man but didn’t answer.  He would be damned if he was going to let John know that something as simple as the small compliment did, in fact, lighten Sherlock’s distress over the impending situation.

_No need to get all mushy_ , he thought bitterly.

“Everyone’s in the drawing room,” John said as he helped Sherlock down the stairs.  The brunette’s stomach protruded so far out that he could no longer see his feet anymore, and the stairs of Mycroft’s home were always taken with great care.

When they got to the bottom of the steps, though, John didn’t release his hand, and Sherlock was secretly glad for it.  He had always hated press conferences and other large gatherings of people—although he had always tried his hardest not to show it—but with the hormones raging and the anxiety from all other aspects of his life seeming to bombard him recently, he felt like he couldn’t keep his stoic composure through this one.

They stopped outside of the closed doors of the drawing room and John gave his hand a final squeeze before he reached out to open the French doors, revealing the nauseatingly flowery decorations inside of the room and all of the people who had come to support Sherlock.

For a moment, the pregnant man could do nothing but stare at all of the people in the room, coming to surround him to offer congratulations and words of praise of encouragement as John dragged him into the room. 

He was speechless, breathless as he stared at everyone who had come just for him.  So many people were there, so many people whom he had always assumed didn’t like him, or were indifferent about him.  A few old school acquaintances like Seb Wilkes and a handful of old clients that he had solved cases for, Henry Knight and his new fiancé among them.  Most of the people there were from Scotland Yard and St. Bart’s, but there was also Mrs. Hudson, Dr. Greenwhich, James McNairn, and a few other pro-Synaths.

No words could describe what he felt at that moment, surrounded by all of these people who wanted to help and support him.  He had never been one to convey a sense of gratitude or appreciation for anything, and everyone there knew that.  He did not live his life trying to make people happy and wanting to make friends—he saw no point, not when everyone who surrounded him on a daily basis was so simple-minded and stupid.  He had thought that all of these people had not been good enough to even spare a second of his precious time on, and he had not kept that thought much of a secret around many of them.  And yet, they were here still, when he doubted he would do the same for any one of them. 

But they would do it for him. 

Simple-minded as they all might have been, there was no denying their capacity to care and show him that he was in their thoughts.

It moved him in a way that he had not been stirred by the good heartedness and unpredictability of people since John had come into his life.

As all words and thoughts left him, he let his silence and a rare, genuine smile say everything that he could not convey to the large group of people standing around him, supporting him, holding him up at such a difficult, trying time in his life.  And John stood beside him the whole time, offering his own support and comfort as people came to speak to them about the happiness a baby would bring into their lives, and tell them how sorry they were for the couple’s recent troubles.

Each person there spoke to Sherlock in turn, giving him kind words and encouraging smiles.  Nobody pitied him, because they all knew him well enough to know that he would not take their pity, but they didn’t patronize him either, knowing how devastating the loss of Baker Street and the assault by the anti-Synaths had been on both he and John.

People mingled in the drawing room when they weren’t speaking to Sherlock, safe in the knowledge that everyone here was comfortable with the idea of what Sherlock was doing.  Lestrade and Donovan were talking passionately with McNairn about protest rallies, and Mrs. Hudson had found Molly Hooper, and they were chatting and giggling by the fireplace.

It didn’t turn out to be as horrible as Sherlock had worried it was going to be.  Once people came by to say hello to him and spend a few minutes chatting, they mostly drifted off to go talk to other people who were there, knowing Sherlock well enough to realize that he didn’t like small talk all that much.  The worst ones were old clients, who had never spent long enough around Sherlock to know that he wasn’t a very sociable person.

But John was always by his side, chasing people away politely when he knew that Sherlock couldn’t handle any more of their inane conversations.

“It’s not so bad, this,” Sherlock said lowly to John some time later, as the blonde man came back carrying a plate heaping with small sandwiches and other finger foods, which he and Sherlock began to pick off of.

“We haven’t gotten to the gifts yet,” John warned in a whisper.  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Gifts?” Sherlock asked, forgetting to keep his voice down.

“Oh, are you opening the gifts now?” Mrs. Hudson’s voice called out, from a few feet away, forgetting that she seemed to be in the middle of a conversation with Dr. Greewhich.

“No, I didn’t—” Sherlock began, but everyone else had already turned their attention to the brunette man, excited about the prospect of Sherlock opening all of the gifts in front of them.

“I guess we could,” John said with a shrug.  And then, so low that only Sherlock could hear, “It may get rid of them faster.”

“By all means, then,” Sherlock responded, “bring on the gifts.”

John chuckled slightly as he led Sherlock over to the table that had been pushed against one wall of the drawing room, where there was a mound of presents all wrapped neatly in colorful paper and gift bags.

“Here,” John said, handing Sherlock a particularly long and bulky-looking one.  “Open this one first.”

“John, I—” he began, suddenly uncomfortable with so many pairs of eyes on him.

“Just open it, Sherlock,” John said with a mischievous smile.

The brunette man could do nothing but sigh and comply.

When he had torn off all of the wrapping paper, he struggled to find the open end of the white box that was beneath it.  John had to point out the proper end to him, and when he finally got the blasted thing open his breath caught in his chest and he couldn’t think of words that conveyed what he felt at that moment.

Inside the white box, there sat a black violin case, brand new and shiny and still smelling of the instrument store that it had been bought from—wood and resin and the metal of brass instruments.

“John, who—?”

“A few of us pitched in,” the blonde man answered him, smiling hugely as he watched Sherlock open the case and stare at the violin inside it in amazement.  “Had to be a joint effort—this is the best one on the market, so you know it was expensive.  Mycroft went in on it with me, and so did Greg and Mrs. Hudson.”  His voice suddenly became very uncertain, as Sherlock stood there and did nothing but stare at the instrument for a very long time.  “I—I hope you like it.  I didn’t know very much about—”

“John,” Sherlock cut him off, voice soft and full of wonder.  He didn’t look at the man though—he couldn’t take his eyes off of the gift in front of him.  “It’s perfect.”

Beside him, John let out a sigh of relief that was cut off in a strangled sound as Sherlock turned around and hugged him suddenly, hard.  Around them, people smiled happily at Sherlock’s uncommon show of human emotion and John had to remind the brunette man to thank everyone else who had helped with the gift.

For once, Sherlock did so without any qualms, if a little awkwardly.

“Thank you—everyone…I…” he let his words trail off, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“Go on, then,” Lestrade shouted out, somewhere in the crowd of people, saving Sherlock from the awkward silence that was settling around the room.  “Don’t be such a girl, mate.”

A few people, including John, chuckled around him, and Sherlock smiled, too, closing the box that the violin came in with a gentle hand and moving it out of the way, so that he could get to the rest of the gifts.

Everything else that Sherlock opened were standard baby shower gifts—useful, everyday things, many of which Sherlock and John had lost in the fire.  Receiving blankets and bottles, diaper genies and clothes.  There was a bassinet, a changing table, a stroller and a baby carrier, all thoughtfully given with gift receipts so that Sherlock could go and exchange them all for better models.

It seemed that everyone really did know Sherlock better than he gave them credit for.

When he got to the end of the pile of gifts, he gave a small sigh of relief that no one but John heard.  Beside him, the blonde doctor only shook his head, warning, “Don’t get too excited.  There’s one more.”

“More?” Sherlock asked, looking back at the table that he had just recently cleared of all gifts.  He looked at the plethora of baby items around him and frowned.  How could there possibly be more?  It seemed like they had received everything ever made that pertained to a baby.  Some of the smaller gifts Sherlock didn’t even know the names to.

“This,” John said, motioning to Lestrade, “is from Scotland Yard.”

The detective inspector made his way through the group, and when he reached John and Sherlock he handed the brunette man a small gift, wrapped beautifully in silver and white paper.

He shook the small rectangular box, hearing the item shift slightly and heavily against the cardboard.

A picture frame.

He frowned.  Maybe his first assumption of some of these people had been right, and they really were just good hearted idiots—where in the hell did they think he was going to put a picture frame up at?  He didn’t even have a home anymore!

Beside him John could tell exactly what he was thinking, and when he opened his mouth to make some biting comment, John simply nudged him in the side and said lowly, “Just open it.”

As usual, he bowed to John’s P.R advice in situations like this and did as he was told.  He ripped the wrapping paper off of the small box and dug his finger into one end of the cardboard, opening it and sliding the metal frame out, letting it fall into his waiting hand.

It fell out with its back facing Sherlock’s gaze, and his mind instantly went to work on it. 

It was heavy and the backing on it was high quality black velvet and not just flimsy cardboard, so he knew that it was expensive.  He could tell that the back of it wasn’t sitting flush against the edge of the frame itself, so someone must have already put a picture in it—it was doubtful that a frame this nice would be so shoddily packaged that it was just a mistake.

He flipped it over in his hands so that he could look at the front of it, and his heart jumped into his throat instantly, and his breath caught in his chest.

An intricate, beautiful design adorned the frame, white vines twining around each other to create a thick metal rope that made up each side of the frame.  The craftsmanship itself was gorgeous, and although he had never paid much attention to things like picture frames before in the past, this particular one reminded him of the old, aged frames his mother had lying all about his childhood home, pictures of he and Mycroft in each one of them. 

But that was not what had caught his eye.  No.  It was what sat behind the piece of flat glass in the center of the frame, surrounded by the beautiful weave of the metal.

The sonogram picture that he had found in the destruction of Baker Street, the burnt white edges of it looking starkly out of place, yet so beautiful against the pristine white of the frame.  The black of the sonogram seemed all the darker against the white metal, making the small shape of his baby stand out a bit easier in the mess of squiggly lines that surrounded it.

Once again, Sherlock was rendered speechless.

No words were enough to convey his gratitude, he knew that.  These people had given him so much more than he had ever thought anyone in his life would _ever_ give him.  So many wonderful things, many of which he had thought he had lost forever in the Baker Street fire.

He looked up from the frame to see everyone staring at him, still smiles and warm eyes, and there were only two words that came to mind to say to these people at that moment.  Two words that hardly ever passed his lips, but that were so appropriate for this situation.  And when he said them, he felt no embarrassment or discomfiture, and he knew that they were as sincere as any words that had ever been spoken by him before.

“Thank you.”

Xxx

As the guest of honor (and not able to spend more than a few minutes walking around without getting short of breath, thanks to the baby pushing squarely against his diaphragm), Sherlock had been shooed by Mrs. Hudson, Molly, Anthea and John back to his bedroom to rest after the baby shower, leaving the others to pick up and set Mycroft’s drawing room straight.

He went up to his bedroom willingly enough, leaving all of the gifts downstairs for John to sort out except for two things: the violin and the picture frame.  Those two presents he crushed in the tight circle of his arms, squeezing them against his rounded belly, as he scrambled carefully up the stairs with his hoard, breathing a sigh of relief when he entered his blissfully empty bedroom.  He took a moment to let the stillness and quiet soak into him before he was making his way across the room, setting his violin down gently on the bed and sitting beside it, long legs hanging over the edge of the mattress and settling softly on the floor.

As he sat at the edge of the bed, his hands came to rest in his lap, holding the picture frame with the sonogram in it.  He stared down at the photograph and his fingers softly ran along it, gliding smoothly against the glass.  The day he had found the picture and shown it to John, the blonde man had said that it was a good sign, and Sherlock had agreed with him, both men looking desperately for something that they could grasp onto in the middle of the destruction that had seemed to be drowning them that day, suffocating them.

He had never been one to believe in ‘signs’.  They were for people of faith, of religion.  People who believed in destiny and fate and thought that their lives were already planned out by some all-knowing being, and all they had to do was follow that path, like little ants following a line of sugar.

Sherlock had never believed any of those things.  _He_ made his own destiny, with nothing but his wits and his intellect.  _He_ made his own fate, with the choices and decisions that were his alone.

But that day he had agreed with John.  A good sign, indeed.  When he had first seen the photograph, whole and undamaged, it had been as close to a miracle as Sherlock had thought anything was.  Even if he didn’t believe in _signs_ and _fate_ and _destiny_ , he could still see that the picture was a good omen.  Everything that had been consumed by the fire, everything that had been destroyed, and only this was left standing.

Only this.

He thought back to everything that had happened over the past 9 months, since taking the Synathida for the first time.  All of the sorrow and suffering and strife.  And, sitting here on the edge of this bed, with the quiet stillness of Mycroft’s home all around him and the picture frame heavy in his hands, he thought about the person that he had been before the Synathida.  Before the baby and before the protestors and before all of the heartache.

He was tired now.  More tired than he could ever remember feeling in his life.  Even when he was going through the detoxes and the cravings for one more hit, one more gram, one more needle.

But he was also happier.  So much happier than he had ever been.  He had Mrs. Hudson, and John, and their baby and a group of good friends who would do anything for him, he knew that now.

He had not thought in a million years that his life would end up this way.

But he was glad that it had.

Xxx

The next week found Sherlock spending considerable amounts of time on his mobile with someone that John didn’t know, and whom Sherlock was very careful to not speak to too much whenever John was around.

It was slightly comical, watching Sherlock trying to be sneaky, but not having the energy or willpower to actually make any real effort at it.  John knew that, if Sherlock had not been 35 weeks pregnant, he would have done more to hide the mystery phone calls and long lunch meetings from John.  But as it was, Sherlock couldn’t even be bothered to get up from his chair and leave the room when the person rang.  He only lowered his voice and spoke in simple, short answers.

Once or twice he even had John leave the room, because he couldn’t be arsed to haul himself out of his chair or off of the bed.  John tried to argue with him, but Sherlock’s temper was becoming a sight to behold as he neared the end of his pregnancy, and any inanimate object lying around or near the man could be turned into a weapon of mass destruction—something John found out the hard way one day when he woke the man up from a nap.

So he learned to make himself scarce before even being asked to, when Sherlock’s mobile would ring and the brunette would get that look in his eye as he glanced at the caller ID.  Once, when his phone had been across the room and it had rung, John had been able to see the name of the caller as he had handed Sherlock the phone.

It was their attorney, Mr. Thepsourine.

John tried not to ask questions, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what Sherlock would be talking to Mr. Thepsourine so constantly about.  When he couldn’t keep quiet any longer and he asked Sherlock, the pregnant man only said cryptically, “The renter’s insurance due to the fire at Baker Street.”

Which would have been fine, but John thought that the insurance company would be the one’s handling all of that, not their personal attorney.

But Sherlock’s tone broached no argument, and John had learned over the years that Sherlock was keen on keeping his secrets just that—secrets, until the day he deemed the time had come to explain himself.

John just had to be patient, he knew.

So patient he was, and rewarded he ended up being.

One day, towards the end of Sherlock’s 35th week, the doctor was texted while he was at the surgery, and told to meet his partner at Baker Street when his shift ended.

The end of the day couldn’t come fast enough for John, perplexed by Sherlock’s recent attitude and now the last minute meeting at their old flat.

When his shift ended, he took a cab over to Baker Street—something he rarely did, seeing as how they lived within a reasonable walking distance—but he couldn’t stand the anticipation any longer.  When he got out and paid the cabbie, he had to pause for a moment to be sure the man had dropped him off at the right address. 

Construction workers were milling about the sidewalk, and more were on scaffolds that sat in front of brand new, dark red walls that were up, covering up the innards of Baker Street that had been visible after the fire had burnt through the better part of the exterior of the building.

John stared in disbelief at the sight before him.

The front door was back up, black still and brand new, standing out starkly against the red brick of the new building façade.  Around him, men in hard hats milled about, most walking to and from an area off to the side of the building that was being used as the main building site.  Long planks of wood were being sawed off by a large, complicated looking machine and there was another section where welders were hard at work, bright sparks flying in all sorts of directions as the rest of the workers gave the area a wide berth.

“Sorry, sir,” John suddenly heard someone call out to him, tapping him on the shoulder.  “But you can’t stand here.  I’m gonna have to ask you to step across the street.”

John turned to see a man behind him, in a pristine white shirt and a checkered tie, bright orange hard hat looking slightly ridiculous against his office attire.  He held rolls of blue prints in his hands, and John could tell from that and by his dress that he was probably a foreman.

He was just about to respond to the man when someone else called out to him, this time by name.

“John!  Over here!”

He turned around again, back towards Baker Street, and saw Sherlock standing in the now open doorway of the building, one hand gripping the frame and a neon orange hard hat resting ridiculously on his head.

“Oh, are you Mr. Watson?” the man behind him suddenly asked, smiling now.

“Er, yeah,” John answered, confused.

“Come on in, then,” the foreman responded, walking up the sidewalk and motioning for John to follow.  “We were waiting for you before we started the tour.”  He motioned to one of the construction workers, and the man ran over with another orange hard hat, which the foreman held out for John and waited patiently for him to don before taking him across the sidewalk and towards Baker Street.

“Tour?” John asked, his confusion growing.  But they had reached the front steps by then and John looked up to see Sherlock, eyes alight with happiness and a large smile on his face.

“Took you long enough to get here,” Sherlock complained, moving back in the entryway to allow John and the foreman to come inside the building.

“I took a cab,” John answered him, not even sure what he was saying at the moment.  He was too busy staring all around him, at everything surrounding him.

More constructions workers were inside the building, groups of them carrying long planks of wood, some of them hammering away at studs, a couple working on the bare wiring that John could see through the exposed walls all around him.

“Well?” Sherlock asked him, as he spread his arms open wide and twirled in the bare entryway of the building.  Patches of sun were breaking through the burnt ceiling of the building above their heads, and shedding a natural light on everything around him—good news for the construction crew.  “What do you think?”

But John couldn’t answer Sherlock because he didn’t even really know what he was looking at.

“Sherlock, what’s going on?” he asked, at a loss for words.

The pregnant man turned on his heel and took off down the entryway, into the depths of what had once been Mrs. Hudson’s flat.  John could do nothing but follow him stupidly, the foreman bringing up the rear.  In front of him, without even bothering to turn around, John heard Sherlock shout out over the hammering and drilling, “I bought the building, John.”

That stopped him dead in his tracks.

“You bought the building?” he repeated, flabbergasted.  He let the information sink in for a moment before he frowned again, deeper this time.  “Sherlock, how could you have bought the whole building—you couldn’t even afford to live here by yourself.”  He hurried to catch up with Sherlock as the man made his way carefully through the labyrinth of as-of-yet unbuilt walls, getting lost easily enough in the strange floorplan that the construction workers had set up.  He didn’t remember Mrs. Hudson’s flat having this many walls up.  “That’s why I moved in with you in the first place, remember?  How could you afford to buy the whole bloody building?”

Sherlock finally stopped, in the middle of what John could only assume was going to be a large room once the workers had the drywall up.  People milled about them, but Sherlock didn’t seem to mind them at all.  He turned on his heel to face the doctor, smile still in place.  

“John, it was years ago when I couldn’t afford to live here by myself,” he answered with a flippant wave of his gloved hand.  “Then I hired a live in P.A who forced all of my clients to start paying me for my services.  Thank you for that, by the way.”

“Yeah,” John said distantly as he watched all of the workers mill about the place.  “Don’t mention it.”

“And then there is the trust fund,” Sherlock stated, and that was enough to draw John’s attention back to him.

“Trust fund?”

“Yes, the trust fund,” Sherlock repeated.  “To become accessible to every Holmes once an heir has been conceived.”  He rubbed a hand over his large belly, looking around him to check the work that had been done in this ‘room’.  “How did you expect we were going to feed the child?” he asked, not looking at John but instead holding both of his hands up, making a half of a square with his index fingers and thumbs in ‘L’ shapes, closing one eye and visualizing something unknown as he held his hands up against one of the unfinished walls.  “You know all of my salary and yours goes towards my wardrobe and science equipment.  Did you never wonder how we would support your baby?”

John stood there for a moment, funny little hard hat sitting uncomfortably on his head as he watched Sherlock go about his modifications.  “So this…trust fund…” he said slowly, stepping out of the way of one of the constructions workers as the man carried a heavy looking power tool across the bare floor.  “It’s enough to buy an entire building?  And still leave enough to—?”

“Of course, John,” Sherlock answered, simply.

“So now we just…own a building?”

“Yes,” the brunette man said, motioning the foreman over to him and telling him something about the wall that he had been staring at, pointing with his long arm across the length of it.  The foreman listened to him intently and then nodded his head, hard hat bobbing.

“What are we going to do with a whole bloody _building_?” John asked suddenly, the information finally sinking in all the way.  He looked around him, trying to see past the poles of wood that were surrounding him and thinking about just how big building 221 on Baker Street had been.

_It is ridiculous; there is no way that this is really happening_ , John tried to console himself.  But Sherlock was making it very hard to grasp the concept indeed.

“Well, we won’t keep the whole thing to ourselves,” the brunette man said with an exasperated roll of his eyes.  “That’s just ridiculous.  I’ve already leased out Speedy’s old spot to Mr. Chatterjee again—wouldn’t want to get rid of that, it’s terribly convenient on a rainy day, isn’t it?—and I’ve got a set of rooms put aside for Mrs. Hudson, of course, at a discounted rental price.  I planned on renting out a few of the other flats once it all gets rebuilt, but the better part of 221 Baker Street will be ours.”

John stared at the man, uncomprehendingly.  “Sherlock, that’s insane,” was all that he managed to get out, past the sudden dryness in his throat.

“Why?” Sherlock asked, eyebrows knotting into a frown underneath the lip of his hard hat.  “You had always said that you wanted a bigger flat.”

“Yes, an extra room or two and a second bath—not a whole sodding _building_!” John exclaimed, throwing his arms out about him to indicate everything around him.  “What are we going to do with all of that room?”

“Well, there can be our room, and the nursery, and a few guest rooms—”

“We don’t ever have _guests_ ; we don’t even have any friends, thanks to you!”

“—and the second bath, a library, and a laboratory.”

“A laboratory?” John asked, skeptically.

“Naturally.”

The two men stood in the middle of the unfinished room in silence for a few minutes, constructions workers milling about around them, ignoring them for the most part.  John stared at Sherlock through hard, dark blue eyes and the pregnant man stared right back, an annoying little smirk tugging at the corners of his full lips.

“So,” John said after a long moment of silence.  “We own Baker Street, then.”

It wasn’t a question.  More like a statement of the unbelievable.

“Well, technically, we only own building 221 on Baker Street,” Sherlock answered him, smile coming into full form now.

“Right then,” John responded, taking a deep breath and looking around at the mess which was currently his new home.  “Much better.”

X.X.X

A/N: Next chapter, ‘Lover Dearest’.


	11. Lover Dearest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: A bit of John/Lestrade. Sorry if it defiles your OTP, but all of the sexual tension between them has to lead somewhere. Don't worry though, this story is Johnlock through and through! ALSO: angst! Lots of angst! If sunshine and rainbows and perfect relationships are your thing, you may not enjoy this chapter, though if you stick with me until the end of the story I promise you won't be disappointed! Seriously guys, heed the warnings for this chapter, please.
> 
> UPDATE: I decided to make a few changes to chapters 11 and 12. Nothing too major, just added on a little to the last scene with John and Lestrade towards the end in 11 and changed up some dialogue in 12. Hopefully this will help resolve things a little more clearly. Thanks to everyone who commented on the original chapters for their opinions on the situation, and a very special thanks to Laura for getting me to reconsider some things. :D You all are great.

“So he really did it?  Bought the whole bloody building?” Greg asked John a few days later as the two men left the small, quiet restaurant together.

John nodded his head at Greg’s question, stepping onto the sidewalk and walking briskly next to the detective.  “ ‘Fraid so,” he answered, his breath showing in puffs of hot air as he spoke into the cold winter chill.

They had decided to meet for lunch and were now headed back to Scotland Yard, so that the detective could get back to his job, forgoing the usual pub scene after a long, tiring day of work or putting up with Sherlock.  This time, this meeting, wasn’t about being fed up with their jobs or their day—this was just about hanging out as friends, and John had to say that he was having a great time.  He never really had the chance when they were at crime scenes or when he was chasing Sherlock back and forth to see how laid back and funny Greg actually was, when he wasn’t putting up with murders and high functioning sociopaths.

“Wow,” Lestrade whistled lowly, shoving his hands in the deep pockets of his long trench coat.  “Sherlock as a landlord.  Can you imagine?”  He chuckled a little at the idea.

John cringed visibly.  He didn’t even want to think about all of the hassle the brunette man had given Mrs. Hudson when he was her tenant—bullet holes in the walls and sulphiric acid eating away at her floors, leaving messes in areas of the building that hadn’t even belonged to them, as if he owned the place.

This was going to be a disaster.

“This is one of his worst ideas, and not just because I think he would make a crap landlord,” John answered with a shake of his tousled, dirty blonde hair.

Beside him, keeping a brisk pace, Lestrade gave him a sidelong glance.  “You don’t want to move back in to Baker Street?” he asked, cutting across the street and heading towards the large police precinct a few blocks away.

John shook his head again, this time as an answer.  “I had told Sherlock after the fire happened that I thought it was a bad idea—I was worried that whoever set fire to our flat was going to try something like it again.” 

They pushed their way through a large group of people crossing the street, out for lunch just as they were.  “And Sherlock didn’t feel the same?” Greg asked, trying to keep up with John as someone cut across his path.

“No,” John answered.  “Said that he ‘wouldn’t be chased from his home’.”  He threw the detective inspector a pleading look, at his wit’s end.  “God, Greg, I wonder about him sometimes, you know?  Here he is, about to move our baby back into the scene of an arson, and he seems like it doesn’t even bother him.”

They had reached Scotland Yard now, and instead of parting ways outside the building, John looked down at his watch and decided that he could spend more time talking to the detective—he had put in a bit of overtime at the surgery last week, since staying at Mycroft’s with the two Holmes brothers constantly at each other’s throats was not something he enjoyed—and he was off for the rest of the day.  So he followed Greg into the foyer and to the stairs, climbing the steps with him and heading towards the detective’s office.

They met no one in the corridors, and John felt comfortable enough having such an intimate conversation out in the open as the two men walked side by side, shoulders bumping against each other every few steps in the close quarters of the corridor. 

“I’m tired, Greg,” John confessed with a sigh.  “Really, I am.  I can’t even think how I’m going to make it through the rest of the pregnancy—let alone the rest of my life—with him.  He’s just so…”  He trailed off, not having a word to describe what he was feeling at the moment.

“He wants too much from you, John,” Lestrade offered.  “He always has.  From everyone who knows him.  He expects us all to cater to him, and understand him and deal with him, because he doesn’t do a damn thing for anybody else, even if it’s just to make a situation a little bit easier to handle.  He’s selfish.  You know that.”

“Yeah,” John said softly in the quiet corridor.  “Yeah, I do.”

They reached the floor that Lestrade worked on, and made their way towards the common area where all of the police officer’s desks were situated.  A step ahead of him, Lestrade turned around while he walked to continue speaking to John, looking down at the shorter doctor as they walked.

“Everyone thinks it’s amazing that you’ve stayed with him for this long,” he told John.  “Especially after this mess.”

John frowned and shook his head, confused.  “What?”

“We can all see it, John,” Lestrade explained.  “The way you hold him up, the way you run yourself ragged to keep him happy and safe.  And he doesn’t even seem to notice, does he?”

They had made their way through the bullpen, where most of the other police officer’s desks sat empty and abandoned, flatfoots either out on patrol or still off to lunch.  John would be lying if he said that Lestrade’s words didn’t strike a chord in him, deep down, but a part of him didn’t want to admit that they rang with a clear, undeniable truth.  “He’s Sherlock,” John answered instead.  “He notices everything.”

“But he hasn’t been noticing you lately, has he?” Lestrade pressed the issue as he unlocked his office door and held it open for John to enter.

It was true, and John knew it, deep down.  Sherlock had been getting lost deeper and deeper into the recesses of his own mind lately.  With his violin back, he had begun recomposing his symphony, rewriting the pieces that had been burnt in the fire.  It wasn’t an arduous process—he remembered most of them, even with the sheet music gone—but he was creating a new piece as well, and John knew that it would be days before Sherlock returned back to the world.

And even before that, Sherlock hadn’t really paid John much attention.  He was either too busy quibbling with Mycroft, or at the Baker Street construction site, overseeing things.  He still made time for cases, but there didn’t seem to be enough time for John in his hectic schedule.  The last time they had spent any actual time together had been the day of Sherlock’s baby shower, over a week ago now, and the most physical contact they had was when John gave Sherlock his nightly backrub before bedtime, in which the brunette man always ended up drifting off during, leaving John feeling alone in more ways than one.

“No,” John answered Lestrade finally, conceding and moving in to the detective’s office, letting Lestrade close the office door softly behind him.  “I guess he hasn’t.”

“I don’t know why he hasn’t—he must be daft,” the detective said, moving away from the door behind John and towards his desk, but when he noticed that John wasn’t moving to take a seat in the guest chairs, Lestrade stopped short and turned instead to look at John, standing close to him.  “I’d notice you, no matter what.”

“Greg, about that—”

He wanted to tell Lestrade that the man needed to stop thinking of him that way, that it was only causing problems between him and Sherlock, that it was pointless to keep these feelings for him, because he was never going to reciprocate, but…

But John would be lying if he said that it wasn’t flattering to have someone pay him attention again.  He would be lying if he said that it wasn’t nice to know that he was still interesting enough for someone to want to have a conversation with, for someone to want to spend time around. 

For someone to look at that way, with that hint of attraction and desire.

Because Sherlock didn’t look at him that way, anymore.

He sighed, rubbing a hand down his face tiredly, trying to wipe away all of these confusing thoughts.

Lestrade seemed to realize what John was thinking, even if the doctor didn’t say anything, and he looked away from the blonde man sheepishly, turning chocolate brown eyes towards the ground.  “I’m sorry if I make you uncomfortable, John,” he apologized, in a slight mumble.  “It’s just…I want you to know how wonderful you are.  Because I know he isn’t telling you.”  Greg looked back up at him then, and there was a softness around his eyes and mouth that Sherlock never had.  “And someone should.”

John smiled, because Greg’s words made him feel so light-hearted and happy.  Giddy, almost.  Strange.

“Thanks, Greg,” he said softly, sincerely.  “I appreciate it.  And I…” he trailed off, because he suddenly realized that he didn’t know what he had been about to say.

And then, suddenly, breaking the silence that had settled in the room around them, Greg’s voice—soft and rough and uncultured—hit him like a brick wall.

“John, can I…can I kiss you again?”

For a second John thought that he had heard wrong.  He had to have heard wrong.  Had to.  “W-what?” he asked uncertainly.

Lestrade gave a small sigh, as if he were unsure that he should even be doing this.  His hands twitched nervously as they sat by his sides, fingers moving almost of their own volition, and the detective gave him a pleading, almost desperate look, as if begging John to understand. 

“I just…ever since that night, when we were drunk, it’s all I’ve been thinking about and I’ve wanted to do it again, even though I know I shouldn’t.”   His words were coming out in a jumble of sounds that John could barely decipher.  “But I don’t want to force you to do it, like I did that night.  Just…just once?” he finished, lamely, dark eyes still locked onto John’s.

And still, John didn’t know what to say.  What could he say?  What should he say?  He didn’t want to hurt Lestrade’s feelings, and he certainly didn’t want to make things uncomfortable between them.  He opened his mouth, hoping something eloquent would come out, but he had no such luck.  All he managed was a shaky, “Greg, I—Sherlo—”

“I know, John,” Lestrade suddenly cut him off in a huff.  “I know that I shouldn’t even ask you for something like this, but…I can’t help it.”  He shrugged his shoulders, at a loss.  “I want to show you that there are other people out there who care about you, too, John.  Not just him.”

“I—”

He couldn’t speak, he didn’t have any words.  His brain wasn’t working properly.  He couldn’t even tell the other man no.

But maybe, deep down, in the darkest part of John’s heart, that was because he didn’t really want to.

“I—” he tried again, and he noticed that Greg was getting closer to him, closing in on him, and John tried to take a step back, but he felt the hard wall of the detective’s office behind him, blocking his escape.

All he had to do was say no.  It was simple.  One little word.  Two letters.  It could be whispered, breathed, mouthed, and he knew that Greg would stop, that Greg wouldn’t push him, wouldn’t make him do anything that he didn’t want to.  But the word wouldn’t come out.  It stuck in his throat, and refused to be pushed up to his mouth, didn’t get anywhere near his lips.

And then he lost his chance, because Greg had reached him; had brought a soft, warm hand up to cup his cheek.  He held John there, and he was leaning down to kiss John, pressing his lips against John’s own with a deep inhalation of breath, as if he were trying to take in John’s scent and hold on to it forever.

His mind went blank.  He didn’t know what to do.  He could feel the wall behind him, a solid surface that offered no escape from the warm press of Greg’s body in front of him, and he tensed up for a moment, unsure.

But Greg’s other hand had come up now to hold John still, to keep him from running, and as the detective continued to kiss him, John suddenly realized that he was losing himself to the simple sensation of the physical attention he was getting.

When John didn’t push him away Greg got bolder, opening his mouth to slide his tongue against the crease of John’s lips, seeking entrance.  John knew that he was lost when he parted them for Greg, letting the man slip his tongue in and deepen the kiss into something far more intimate, far more personal, and far more dangerous.

And suddenly Greg was pushing closer to him, forcing him back against the wall with a small thud and pressing their bodies closer together, making what space had been between them disappear, his hands moving up to comb through John’s hair as his tongue continued to taste John’s mouth, and the blonde man felt himself move of his own volition.

He grasped onto Greg’s shoulders desperately, pulled him closer against his body, against his lips—giving as good as he got as their tongues pressed against each other, danced around one another, and their breathes came out of their opened mouths in heated pants.

Vaguely he was aware of Greg’s knee pressing in between his thighs, trying to push them apart so that he could get even closer to John’s body.  And there was a moment where John was so lost in everything that was happening that he moved his legs apart, so that Greg could push closer to him, and his hands on Greg’s shirt tightened as a small moan escaped his mouth, swallowed by Greg’s lips.

But John was slowly coming to realize that the feel of the other man was all wrong.  Not like Sherlock at all.  He was softer, gentler, more pliable, and John was becoming very aware that it was not Sherlock he was kissing.  It was someone else.

It was Greg.

_God, what the fuck am I doing,_ he thought suddenly, eyes flying open as the reality of the situation came crashing down around him.

_Shit_.

He unclenched his hands from where they were clutching at Greg’s coat around his shoulders, and brought them around to the man’s chest so that he could get more leverage to push the detective off of him.  When the dark haired man didn’t seem to notice, John broke their kiss, turning his head to the side and gasping for air.

“We need to stop,” he said, somewhat breathlessly, his chest heaving.

In front of him, Greg’s breaths matched his own, and he let his head fall against the side of John’s forehead as the man turned away from him, their faces still close and their breaths meeting each other in between their lips, noses still close enough to brush against one another.

“I like you, John,” Lestrade mumbled, voice low and deep with his arousal.  The words were barely a whisper, but John could feel them against his skin more than he could hear them with his ears.  “A lot.  And I’m willing to be everything that he isn’t to you.”

“Greg, I—”

He what?  He liked him, too?  He wanted someone other than Sherlock to be everything that he needed?  He wanted the man to keep kissing him?

He didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

But he knew that he should probably leave.

Right now.

“I should go,” he let the words escape his mouth on a shuddering breath.

“Yeah, right.  Okay,” Greg said, with a small sigh of disappointment.  His eyelids closed as he kept his face close to John’s for a second longer, as if he were trying to commit this moment to memory before he pulled away from John, putting a proper amount of distance between them once again.  When he had taken a few steps away from the blonde man, he gave John a look full of worry and trepidation.  “John, I’m sorry if I made this uncomfortable,” he said in a rush.  “That wasn’t what I meant at all.”

“I know, Greg,” John said, taking a moment to compose himself again.  He brought a shaky hand up to wipe at his mouth, surprised that he could still feel the imprint of Greg’s lips on his own.  He tugged at the collar of his jacket, straightening his black and gray plaid shirt underneath his coat, trying to keep his hands busy and his eyes from Lestrade’s face. 

“You didn’t make it uncomfortable,” he answered the detective truthfully, clearing his throat.  “Just…a little muddled.  But it’s not your fault,” he reassured quickly, finally daring a glance back up at the detective to find Lestrade staring back at him, trying to see if John was being honest or not.

But John _was_ being honest.  It wasn’t Lestrade’s fault, it really wasn’t.  _He_ should have had more resolve to say no when Greg had asked to kiss him, _he_ was the one who should never have let it go this far.  Him and Sherlock.

Speaking of Sherlock…

His phone vibrated in his trouser pocket and he jumped guiltily, caught off guard by the loud sound in the quiet room.  He knew who it was, of course.  It could only be one person.

He fumbled awkwardly to get to his mobile while Greg stepped farther away from him and towards his desk, an embarrassed blush coming over his tanned skin and he lowered his head rather shamefully as John finally managed to get the phone out of his pocket and unlock the screen.

_‘At Baker St.  Waiting,’_ the text message stated.

John sighed, frustrated and at a complete loss.  It was things like this that made his resolve towards Sherlock waver.  Small things that may not mean much when they happened every once in a while, but with Sherlock, all of these small things tended to snowball constantly, since they happened every few minutes.

Selfish actions, rude comments, condescension.

Sherlock had not told him earlier that they would be meeting at Baker Street, yet here he was, acting as if John had put him out for making him wait on the blonde man.  And, to Sherlock, it didn’t matter if John were busy.  The doctor could still be at work, finishing up with an emergency, taking care of a patient, something, anything.  But Sherlock didn’t even ask if it was convenient for John to meet him.  He never did.

“I have to go,” he said with a sigh, rubbing tiredly at his face again and switching off the phone, putting it back in his pocket.

Lestrade gave a small nod of his head.  “Of course you do,” he said softly.

John turned around and opened the door to Lestrade’s office, turning back around in the doorway and looking at the detective inspector with a small smile.  “Greg…thank you,” he told the man.  There were police officers out in the bullpen now, back from their lunch breaks, and John knew that a few of them were looking their way, wondering what could bring Sherlock’s blogger over to the yard without the consulting detective following close by.

From behind his desk, Lestrade frowned at John, at a loss.  “For what?” he asked, curious.

“For being there for me,” John answered simply.  “When he isn’t.”

Greg smiled, a real, happy smile, like the cat that had just gotten the proverbial cream.  “Any time, John,” he told the blonde doctor as John gave him a reciprocating smile and a small nod goodbye.  “Any time at all.”

Xxx

“What was so important that I had to drop everything and come meet you here?” John asked Sherlock, making his way through the nearly-finished entryway of the recently reconstructed Baker Street.  He could see Sherlock down the corridor, carrying a large bag as he walked and disappearing into one of the rooms towards the back of the building.

“Were you busy?” he heard the pregnant man call out from inside the room, and John moved to follow him, stepping lightly on the new hardwood floor, as if afraid to scuff it.  When he rounded the corner and saw into the room that Sherlock had disappeared into, he stopped in amazement.

He was in a bedroom.  Or, at least, it had the potential to be a bedroom.  He only called it a bedroom now because there was a very large, very ornate looking four poster bed set up in the middle of it, against one wall.  Sherlock, as far as he could tell, was digging bedclothes out of the large bag he had been carrying and heaping everything onto the bare mattress that sat in the middle of the bedposts.

“Well?” Sherlock urged, when John didn’t answer him.  “Were you?”

“That’s not the point, Sherlock,” John said, ignoring the picture in front of him for the moment to argue with Sherlock instead.

“What were you doing, then?” the pregnant man asked, fluffing a pillow rather harshly and throwing it haphazardly onto the head of the mattress.

John blushed suddenly, at Sherlock’s question.  He ducked his head so that brunette man would not notice anything was amiss, but Sherlock wasn’t really paying him any attention in the first place.  “Nothing,” John answered, a bit too quickly.  “Never mind, forget I said anything.”  He cleared his throat awkwardly and prayed that Sherlock didn’t glance over at him.

His prayer was answered.

“How do you think it’s coming along?” Sherlock asked, finishing up dumping all of the bedclothes onto the mattress and then turning his back to John, looking about the room that they were in with a pleased smile.

John followed Sherlock’s gaze and scanned the room skeptically.  He took in the bare walls that were up, covering up the studs beneath them, and the shiny, polished hardwood floor on which they stood, inhaling the scent of fresh cut wood and new paint deeply. 

“It’s nice,” John answered him.  “Coming along very nice indeed.  It will be ready to move in to in a few weeks?” he asked.

Sherlock twirled to face him then, long over coat still on because the brunette man hadn’t flipped on the electric breaker for the building yet.  “It’s ready now, John,” he answered the blonde man, an unreadable look in his sea green eyes.

John scoffed, throwing him a look that was half smile, half exasperation.  “Hardly, Sherlock,” he said to the pregnant man.  “The entryway, kitchen and half of the other rooms don’t even have drywall up yet.  We can’t stay in here.”

Sherlock moved around the bed then, coming towards John and making his way out of the bedroom, heading back towards the front door but veering off into another room just before he reached the entryway.  “Maybe _you_ can’t,” he called over his shoulder to John as the blonde man moved to follow him.  “But you’ll get used to it in a few days.”

“No, Sherlock,” John responded, following Sherlock into what was meant to be their new living room.  “I won’t, because I’m not staying here.  And neither are you.”

“We’ll need to go shopping for electronics again,” the brunette man was mumbling to himself, staring at the far wall of the room with his fingers steepled in front of his mouth, not paying John any attention again.

John sighed loudly, trying to draw Sherlock’s attention as he stood in the middle of the empty room.  But when that didn’t work out, he simply spoke, voice loud and echoing in the bare room around them.  “Sherlock, what exactly are we doing here?”

That seemed to draw the pregnant man out of himself for a moment.  He looked over at John, as if just remembering that the blonde man was there, and his gaze shifted to the ceiling above their heads.  “Ah, yes.  I had the construction workers help me bring in a few of the heavier pieces of furniture.  They put everything that we got from the baby shower up in the nursery.”

He moved around John once more, heading out of the room and going over to the staircase, in the same spot that it had been in the old Baker Street.  He was halfway up the steps when he stopped and looked down at John.  “Come on, then, everything needs to get sorted.”

With a huff, John followed his partner up the steps and stopped on the landing.  There was a long corridor with several closed doors, indicating that they were rooms.  Sherlock passed by a few before he stopped outside of one, hand reaching out to turn the door knob and open it to reveal a large, spacious room.  Big, wide windows ran alone the back wall, letting in lots of fading light from the early winter sunset.  In the center of the room, there was a large pile of all of the gifts that they had received for the baby shower, from the new crib to the changing table and even all of the clothes.

“We should get started,” Sherlock said as he walked into the room.  “The crib needs to be set up again.”

They worked silently together for a few hours, speaking only when necessary.  Sherlock still seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, and John took advantage of the opportunity to think about the things that had transpired that day, and everything that he and Greg had said to each other.  They were both so engrossed in putting the nursery together and in their own thoughts that John didn’t even notice how late it had gotten until he stood up from bending over the now finished crib, wincing at a cramp in his back, and checked his watch with a groan.

“Come on, Sherlock, it’s getting late,” he said, tossing down the screwdriver that he had been using and letting it fall back into the tool bag that one of the construction workers had left behind.  “Let’s go back to Mycroft’s and we can start again in the morning.”

At that, Sherlock glanced up from his sorting of blankets, bibs and wash cloths, throwing John a blank stare, eyes catching the low yellow light of the cheap, bare bulb that hung from the wall above their heads.  “I told you, John.  I’m not leaving,” he said simply, going back to his sorting without another word.

John stared at him for a moment, stunned.  “You mean to stay here?” he asked skeptically.  “In this?”  he pointed out the nursery door and towards the staircase.  “Sherlock, there aren’t even any interior walls up in half the flat!”

But the pregnant man would not be bothered by that simple fact.  “Don’t be so dramatic, John,” he said, waving a hand flippantly, as if brushing away John’s concern.  “People stay in their houses all the time when construction is being done.  I had the workers focus on finishing up our bedroom and the bathroom.  And the electric and water are on,” he motioned to the light bulb above their heads, as if John hadn’t noticed it.  “It’s perfectly liveable.”

John looked at him for a moment, at a loss for words.  “Sherlock, you have a bed, a toilet and a bathtub.  That’s not ‘liveable’,” he finally argued, irritated.

“Fine, _stayable_ , then,” Sherlock responded, not looking at John.  “Whatever you like to call it.  It has a roof now and the external walls are up.  That’s all that really matters, John.”

“No, Sherlock.  No, it doesn’t,” John stated, beginning to pace the room like he usually did when Sherlock agitated the hell out of him.  “You can’t stay here!” he shouted, throwing his hands up in the air above his head.  “You’re acting crazy!  Now, just gather your stuff, because we’re leaving.  Right now!”

That got Sherlock to look at him.  John was hardly ever forceful with Sherlock, not in this way, and Sherlock knew that.  “John,” he started, “why are you—”

But the doctor had had enough of Sherlock’s blatant disregard for other people’s emotions and safety.  He cut the pregnant man off, voice loud and reverberating against the walls that surrounded them, echoing down the empty corridor.

“Because, Sherlock!” he yelled out.  “Because!  You’re not making any sense anymore!”  He turned to the brunette man and was glad to finally see that he had Sherlock’s attention now, now that he was yelling and stomping about, and so mad that he could barely even see straight anymore.  “I know these last few weeks have been hard, but _God_!  You’re talking about moving us back into a hole!”  He motioned around them then, at the half-finished rooms and the uncovered electrical outlets.  And then he turned to point an accusing finger at Sherlock, and the brunette man was staring at John as if the doctor had suddenly grown an extra head. 

“I hadn’t wanted to build it back up in the first place!” John argued, once again.  “It’s dangerous, Sherlock.  Dangerous and stupid.  It’s like taunting the anti-Synaths, asking for more trouble.  Don’t you see that?” he asked the man, but he didn’t give Sherlock the chance to respond.  “I know you’ve never cared about anyone else’s safety—not even your own sometimes—but now you have other people to consider.”  He took his finger and jabbed it at Sherlock’s sternum, hard, to drive his point home.  “You have another life that’s more important than your own to think of.”

At the forceful touch, Sherlock came back to himself, no longer stunned by the normally level-headed doctor’s sudden outburst.  He pushed John’s hand away viciously, and frowned at the shorter man darkly. 

“I do think of him, John,” he argued, his deep baritone voice harsh and angry.  “And I don’t want him to grow up being scared of petty, small-minded, weak-willed people who would rather destroy someone’s home during the middle of the night like cowards than face a problem head on.”  And now it was his turn to pace, his turn to gesture to the building surrounding them, his longer arms seeming to encompass more of it than John’s did.  “Baker Street was ours, John.  Ours and his.  And they took that away from him.  They took away his sense of comfort and safety before he even had a chance to feel it, to know what it was.”

He turned to John then, no longer pacing and no longer yelling.  When he spoke next, his voice was low and calm, and it broke John’s heart just to listen to it.  “I’m not just going to stand by and let them take away everything that I hold closest to me.  If you are too scared to fight for the things our child deserves, then you don’t deserve him.”

His breath caught in his chest at Sherlock’s words.  He stared at the tall, dark haired man, still buttoned up in his long overcoat because the temperature outside was dropping, and they hadn’t been able to get the thermostat to work earlier when they had gone out to flip on the electrical breaker. 

It was all so ridiculous suddenly; that they were standing in an empty building, bickering, that Sherlock was not wanting to leave even though they could see their hot breath hit the cold air and turn into a cloud of heat, that they had gotten to this point in the first place.

John looked around them, at all of the emptiness, and then his gaze fell back on Sherlock, breathing heavy in his anger and brow furrowed furiously, cheeks a glossy red from the cold and their argument.

“Sherlock, what are we doing?” he asked suddenly, quietly.  “It’s all got so muddled.”  He was silent for a moment, taking it all in.  When he spoke next his tone was defeated and weary, trembling with something close to pain.  “We’re losing, Sherlock.  We’re losing each other, we’re losing against the Synaths, we’re losing everything.  It’s all just slipping away and we can’t do anything about it.”

Sherlock did nothing but stare at him for a moment, beautiful mercurial eyes dancing with a million thoughts that he neither spoke nor showed, and when he answered John his tone was hurt and full of a sorrow that John had never heard before.

“You’re wrong, John.  We can.  You just don’t want to anymore.”

John didn’t even have the energy to get upset at his riddles anymore.  “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, tiredly.

And then Sherlock said four little words that caught John’s breath in his throat and had his heart double its beats in his chest.

“I know about Lestrade.”

John said nothing; no statement of denial, no excuse for his actions, nothing.  He had nothing left to give him the strength to fight, anyways.  He only had enough energy left to stand before Sherlock while his partner stared at him, through him, his dark blue eyes wide, and he knew that he had been caught red-handed.

“I know what he’s been telling you,” Sherlock continued, and John got the distinct impression that Sherlock was trying to shame him with his words—and, if that were the case, it was working wonders.  John visibly cringed as Sherlock spoke, not sure he could stomach listening to the man for a moment longer.  “I know that he still talks to you about his feelings for you and I know what you’re starting to think about the whole situation.”

“How could you possibly—?” he tried to argue, vainly, to save himself from that little bit of embarrassment, to soothe just that little bit of his pride.  But Sherlock would not allow even that much.

“Because I can see it in your eyes, John,” he cut the blonde man off, voice so harsh that it cut him down.  “Every time you look at me.  You’re tired, and you’re fed up and you don’t think you can do this anymore.”  He paused then, and John thought that maybe—just maybe—he would get out of this with some small shred of his dignity still intact.  But he was wrong.  “And I can smell his aftershave on you, now, even from this distance.”

They stood there, in front of each other, silent and still, no words left and nothing but anger and resentment between them.  And only after some time, when it seemed that Sherlock couldn’t take it any longer, he whispered, “Tell me I’m wrong.  Please.  Tell me I have it wrong for once.”

John drew in a shuddering breath, throat tight.  He opened his mouth to speak, to tell Sherlock what the man wanted to hear, but the words wouldn’t come out.  All that came out in their place was a small, dismal, “I can’t.”

Sherlock’s face crumbled then, and John had never seen anything so heartbreaking before in his life, save once, when he had watched this man, this person that he loved so dearly, throw himself off of a rooftop right in front of John’s eyes.  And he could see this scenario playing out the exact same way, and ending just as desolately. 

“Then lie to me,” Sherlock was whispering to him, pleading.  “Something.  Anything.”

But John still couldn’t say the words that Sherlock wanted him to say.  He had broken promises to this man, and cheated on him.  Disgraced their bond and failed their unborn child.  He would not—could not—hurt him again by lying to him.  He refused. 

“I can’t,” he whispered, brokenly.  And he felt tears spring into his eyes then, hot and burning in humiliation and sorrow.

He watched blearily as Sherlock’s face steeled into an icy resolve, and his shoulders tensed beneath his black over coat, going hard and rigid just like the line of his mouth and the set of his jaw.  “Then leave,” he stated harshly, voice ringing loud and clear in the din of the silence around them.

But John shook his head, not trusting himself to talk.  When he finally felt that he could speak without making a fool of himself, he whispered, “I can’t do that, either.”

Xxx

“I wish you would,” Sherlock told him, voice cold and hard and almost foreign to his own ears.  “I wish you would just go, that way I wouldn’t have to worry about you.  About what you’re doing when you meet up with him, or what you’re thinking about this whole mess.  I wouldn’t have to feel guilty that I’m the one putting you through this, that I’m the one doing this to you—pushing you away.”  He was mad at John—furious and betrayed and broken-hearted—but even in the midst of everything that was happening, Sherlock knew that it wasn’t John’s fault alone.  He had always known that something like this would never be John’s fault alone.  “I’ve made a mess out of this, haven’t I?”

He stood there, waiting for John to answer him.  To tell him no, that it wasn’t just his fault, to tell him that he still loved him, to tell him that he _wanted_ to be here with Sherlock.  To say anything that would stop the pounding of Sherlock’s heart in his chest, the sharp intakes of breath, the sweat forming on his palms as he stood in front of John and waited for something, anything, to make him feel as though his world were not going to come crashing down around him soon, broken and crumbling and crushing.

“Yes, Sherlock,” John answered, truthfully, quietly.  “You have.  We have.  If you really want me to go, then I’ll go.”

That wasn’t what Sherlock wanted to hear.  That wasn’t what John was supposed to say.  John was supposed to tell him that he was wrong—about Lestrade, about wanting to give up, about wanting to leave.  John was supposed to hold him up, be his rock, be the unfaltering hand that Sherlock leaned on.

Because he couldn’t do this on his own.

There was no way.

And he understood suddenly, why John was so tired of this.  Sherlock realized in that moment, just how much weight he had put onto John’s shoulders.  Weeks, months, even years, he had been piling more and more onto John, had been doing so ever since they had first met, and Sherlock was finally beginning to understand that all of those things people had been saying about him being selfish—John, Lestrade, Mycroft—well, maybe they were true after all.

“I’m sick of this, Sherlock,” John’s soft voice cut into his thoughts.  “Of these games that you play and all that you ask of me.  I’m just so sick of it.”

“Well I’m not sick of you.”  He was being petulant and childish, he knew, but—really—he didn’t know what else he should say, what else he should do in this situation.  He could feel John slipping away from him, pulling and pushing against him and trying to break apart, trying to leave.  And, _God_ , what was he supposed to do now?

John stared at him for a long second, dark eyes boring into him in the dim light from the yellow bulb above their heads, and Sherlock knew that he had said the wrong thing again, just like usual; done the wrong thing and been the wrong person.  “Is that as good as it’s going to get, then?” John asked him, the tone of his voice mirroring the look in his eyes, emotionless, loveless…done.  “You’re not sick of me, and you expect that to make everything better?  To fix everything?”

Sherlock knew these were questions he was not supposed to answer, so he didn’t.  At least he could get that much right. 

“You need to be just a little more than ‘not sick’ of me, Sherlock,” John was continuing, heedless of how his words were ripping the pregnant man apart at the seams.  “I need to know I’m not just _more or less_ the best thing for you.” 

He pointed to Sherlock again, stuck a shaking finger out and motioned to Sherlock’s stomach, round and full between them.  “If you can love that baby so strongly—so strongly that you will sleep in a flat with holes in the floor, with no walls up, with no heat; so strongly that you will give up everything in your life—then you have to remember me, as well.”

There was a pause in which John drew a deep breath to continue speaking, and Sherlock wished like hell that he could interrupt the man, that he could make John stop talking, that he could make John just _shut up_ for a second so that he could wrap his mind around the blonde man’s previous words and everything that was happening.

But he got no such luxury, because John forged ahead, heedless of the tears that he knew his words would bring to both of them. 

“You expect me to be there for you,” he said to Sherlock, voice quivering, “to tell you everything is going to be fine and to make it all better for you.  But you don’t give me anything in return, Sherlock.  You look to me for help but as soon as things are better you’re off again,” he motioned out the window of the room, to the busy street below them, to the darkness of the city all around them, and Sherlock could feel the pull for the need of another case even as he stood there, his heart breaking, because it was an addiction, after all— _his_ addiction—and he knew that he could never stop it. 

He had never really wanted to, not even for John. 

“On another case,” John was continuing, “solving another puzzle, miles away from me even when you’re sitting in the same room as I am, listening to classical music so that the baby can hear it, playing your violin so that the baby can feel it, spending hours logging all of the information on your body and your measurements and your prognosis into those blasted little notebooks.”  John ticked off all of Sherlock’s faults on his hands, each finger coming up to count another one like a blow to Sherlock’s body, hurtful and harsh. 

John looked at him then, hard and unwavering, squaring himself up and the brunette man was aware that his voice was no longer shaking.  It was strong and steady and proud.  “I’m not just here to hold you up, Sherlock,” he said to the brunette man, “to be your stepping stone while you rise above it all unscathed.  You need to help me up next to you.  It’s a two way street, and you have to make room for all three of us.”

_For all three of us_.

Yes, because it wasn’t just him and John anymore was it?  Or even just him and the baby, like it had been for 8 months.  They were so close to coming together now, weeks away, and it felt strange somehow, like they were all still strangers—John didn’t know their baby like Sherlock did, didn’t feel him fluttering about every day, or happily doing flips whenever Sherlock ate strawberry jam or played his violin.  But Sherlock didn’t really know him, either, had never met this little human being growing inside of him, had never seen him.  And John and Sherlock…it felt like they hardly knew each other anymore.  Where there had once been a strong partnership and no need for words, there was now hidden text messages from Lestrade and secret lunch dates and a whole symphony of music that told a story that John could never understand. 

“I don’t want to stay, Sherlock,” John’s voice suddenly cut through his thoughts, soft and desperate.  Sherlock turned glass-green eyes towards him, not believing what John was saying.  But the blonde man simply shook his head in defeat, continuing to stare at Sherlock.  “I don’t,” he repeated, as if knowing that Sherlock wouldn’t comprehend what he was saying.  “I’m done.  I’m tired of giving one hundred percent and not getting anything back from you.  If you want me to stay, you’re going to have to tell me.  You’re going to have to make me want to.”

“Well, then, maybe it’s all right if you just go.” 

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, like vomit coming up uncontrollably, and they physically pained him.  Why had he said them?  That wasn’t what he really wanted.  He wanted John.  He wanted John to be with him, he wanted them to be together.  He wanted to give John everything that the other man was asking for.

He wanted to, but he knew deep down that he couldn’t.  He had never been that type of person.  Selfish, arrogant, self-centered.  He was all of those things.  He was not one to work on becoming a better person, or trying to be more considerate of other people’s feelings.  He didn’t go out of his way to make others feel as though they were needed, or appreciated, or valued.

But John knew this about him.  Had known this for years.

And when John heard those words, it broke Sherlock’s heart even more to see that the blonde man wasn’t even surprised that they had come out of Sherlock’s mouth.

“Yeah, right then,” he said sadly, and Sherlock could see the glimmer of tears in his eyes, turning his irises so dark that they looked almost black.  “That’s what I figured.” 

He turned then, towards the door to the nursery and away from Sherlock, heading towards the door to leave…and Sherlock just let him.  He didn’t know what to say, what to do, to make John come back…so he did nothing, could do nothing. 

But when John reached the door he turned back around, and for a moment Sherlock felt some spark of hope, some glimmer that maybe this whole thing wasn’t real after all, and that they would apologize to each other like they normally did and move on with their lives, together.

But he was very, very wrong.

“You know, Sherlock, this would never have worked out, anyways,” John said from the doorway, and Sherlock forgot how to breathe for a second.  “We were just fooling ourselves.  I’m surprised we lasted this long.  But this was bound to happen, sooner or later.  Because the bitter in you, and the quitter in me…its better than the both of us, Sherlock.  I wish it wasn’t, but it is.”

And then John turned around and left, shutting the door to the nursery behind him with a small click that sounded like a gunshot going off right into Sherlock’s heart.

Xxx

The night air outside was cold, but John barely noticed it.  Thoughts of his fight with Sherlock kept chasing each other through his head, the words that he had told the brunette man playing back in his mind like a punch in his gut as he remembered each harsh word that he had said.

It was true, all of it.  He hadn’t lied about a thing and he had finally told Sherlock exactly what he was thinking.  But…

But he couldn’t kid himself into thinking that he felt better now that everything was out in the open.

No, he felt distinctly worse.

These thoughts preoccupied his mind as he walked, and before he knew it, he found himself at Lestrade’s flat, surprised with himself.

He hadn’t meant to come here.  Truly, he hadn’t.  But even as he stood on the sidewalk and stared at the building he began to realize that he didn’t have anywhere to stay, and that he could really use a friend at that moment.

With a resigned sigh, he walked over to the door and buzzed.  The detective answered after only a minute.

“I-it’s John,” the blonde man said into the intercom.  Two little words that needed no other explanation, but that held a world of meaning behind them.  Lestrade would know why John was here this late at night, without even a text to explain his presence beforehand.  Lestrade would know the moment he opened the door and saw John’s face, deep blue eyes red from the tears he had been trying to hold back.

And he did, when he at last opened the door and saw John standing on his front step, hands in his pockets to keep them warm and the tip of his nose red from the cold and the tears.

“John, what—?” he opened his mouth to ask, but the blonde man cut him off with a shaky voice.

“I know it’s probably not a good idea, after what happened in your office today,” John explained in a jumble of words.  “But…I have nowhere else to go.”

Greg looked at him then, a deep, penetrating look that was so much softer than Sherlock’s gaze ever had been.  “That’s all right,” he said, moving out of the way of the door and holding out a hand for John to grab, so that the detective inspector could pull him inside, out of the cold.  “You can always come to me, John.  You know that.”

John sighed, running his hand along the back of his neck as he entered.  He was so tired.  Tired of everything.  He felt drained.  The past several months and Sherlock and the baby and all of the constant worry, the fear he felt every day of his life for Sherlock and for their child.  He didn’t think he had ever felt so tired in his life. 

But, tired as he was, he knew there was at least one thing he had cocked up that he could fix, much as he didn’t want to be having this conversation right now.

“Greg, listen,” he said hoarsely as he made his way into the man’s living room.  “About all of…this,” he gestured pointlessly in between the two of them, turning to face the DI, “it just needs to stop.”  He gave the man a desperate, helpless look, wishing like hell for something to just be simple for once.  “Honestly, I don’t know what I’ve been thinking, letting it go this far, and it’s not fair to him.  Not after everything he’s been through.”

“I know, John.  I know,” Greg told him, shaking his head and looking distinctly uncomfortable as he followed John into his living room.  “Look, I understand Sherlock’s having a hard time of it right now, and I know that he’s my friend and I shouldn’t be doing this to you guys.  I _know_ that,” he stressed, giving John a look as if he were desperate for the blonde to understand him.  “But I just…hate the way he doesn’t seem to notice you anymore.  I just think you deserve better is all.  I’m not purposefully trying to hurt him; I care about him, I really do.  But sometimes he just hurts the people around him, and he doesn’t even see it.”  Greg’s look turned soft as it rested on John, dark eyes deep and comforting.  “And I can’t stand the thought of you living the rest of your life like that.”

“I know, Greg, but…that’s the choice I made when I fell in love with him,” John replied, shrugging his shoulders hopelessly, shaking his head.  He sighed heavily and flopped down onto Greg’s sofa, groaning into his hands.  “God, this has turned into a real mess, hasn’t it?”

He felt Greg settle onto the cushions beside him and when he dropped his hands he saw the man giving him a sad, understanding smile.  “A bit, yeah.”

John looked over at him, sitting a little too close on the sofa, and he suddenly remembered the wounded look Sherlock had given him when John had told him he was right about Lestrade.  He remembered how much it hurt knowing he had put that look on his lover’s face.  “But I should have said it before, and I didn’t, so this much of it is my own damn fault, I know.”  He took a deep breath and steeled his nerves, looking at the older man.  “I’m sorry, Greg, but you just need to leave off.  All right?  I can’t—I _won’t_ —do this to Sherlock.  And I know you wouldn’t either, when it came down to it.  I know you care too much about him, too.”

Greg visibly cringed at John’s words, shoulders slumping and face turning away from the blonde.  “Yeah,” he said, looking chagrined.  “Yeah, you’re probably right about that.”  He moved away from John on the couch, a small movement that was painfully uncomfortable in its awkwardness, and John hated it.

“But the last thing I want is to lose a friend, Greg,” he told the other man honestly, sighing.  Too much was already slipping through his fingers, and he felt so helpless to stop it.

“You just don’t want to be out on the street tonight,” Greg replied, turning back to him with a sad smile.

John smiled back, and it felt easy, some of the tension between them dissipating.  “Yeah, well, that too.”

They sat there for a moment longer, in a silence that was slightly less uncomfortable, before Greg spoke up again.  “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head.  “I’ve been a twat.  You guys didn’t…” he trailed off and sighed, running his fingers through his short salt and pepper hair.  “Are you going to be okay?” he asked finally.

It killed John that he couldn’t answer the man.  “I honestly don’t know,” he told him with a helpless little shrug. 

“Was it because of—” he started, but John cut him off, knowing where he was going.

“No.  No, it wasn’t you,” he replied with a shake of his own head.  “It was us.  I think this has been coming for a while now; we just didn’t want to face it.”  John tiredly rubbed his face with his hands, and he felt the tears threatening to spill over once again.  He wondered how much longer he was going to be able to hold them back, because he certainly didn’t have the strength to keep them in anymore.  “But I guess we just couldn’t run from it forever, could we?”

Xxx

The flat was empty and cold, and Sherlock didn’t like it.  He hadn’t been alone since John had come into his life.  Even when the blonde man had left after learning about Sherlock’s pregnancy for the first time, there had been Mrs. Hudson, trivial as that comfort was.

But now…

Now there was no one.  Not even Mycroft sent a car, as usual.

No, Sherlock had really made a mess out of it this time.  He knew that.  He had known that for a long time now, he had just refused to believe what was happening.

He had figured that he could close himself off into his own little world like he usually did, and that when he decided to come back out, things would have fixed themselves, like it normally happened.  But he was starting to realize that things didn’t just fix themselves on their own, in the past—John had fixed them.  John had always fixed them for Sherlock, helped Sherlock, made things better for Sherlock.  Because that was what he did and that was what Sherlock depended on him to do.

And now he didn’t even have that anymore.

All he had was this bleak and cold emptiness around him.

He made his way carefully down the stairs and across the entry way, back towards the bedroom where he curled up on the mattress and laid his head down on the pillow, bending around his belly and wrapping his arms about himself in the chilly dimness of the room, wishing like hell John was lying beside him, keeping him warm and keeping him happy.

But there was only blackness around him, and emptiness.  Everything was empty—the rooms, the flat, the building—except for his bed, and his body, and he rubbed his hands gently over the swollen, stretched skin of his stomach, feeling his child move sleepily inside of him and letting his eyes drift closed when he couldn’t possibly stand to keep them open for a second longer.

X.X.X

A/N: I know some of you may not be thrilled with where I took the boys in this chapter, but, personally, this is probably one of my favorite chapters in the story.  When I was writing it, their argument seemed to flow very naturally.  The song that this chapter is based off of is so beautiful, I ended up taking some lyrics straight out of it.  I would definitely encourage you to listen to it, there's a sense of desperation in the song that I think fits this chapter rather nicely.  Next up is ‘Masterpiece Theater III’ and the final one in the story!  Don’t worry, though—it is going to be long!


	12. Masterpiece Theater III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Bad science. Like, I don’t even know if all of my medical explanations make any sense at all. Let’s just suspend all knowledge of medical science for the next 17,000 words. That would really help me out a lot, thanks. If that doesn’t work for you, I have a default excuse of ‘every person’s body is different and reacts to medications, anesthesia and/or pain differently’ waiting on standby. I’d also like to point out that I have never had a spine block, been in labor, or given birth, so I have no idea what any of that feels like. That being said, I’d just like to thank you all so much for sticking with this story, and for all of the lovely comments. This is the first novel-length story I’ve ever posted (ever written, really), and you all have been so supportive and wonderful.

The pain started a few hours in to the case.  Sherlock had just gotten permission from Mrs. Holloway to exhume her dead husband’s remains, and almost didn’t notice the dull throbbing near his navel and in his upper abdomen.  It wasn’t until it began to work its way down to his right side and become a bit sharper that it caught enough of his attention to warrant a moment of his time.

But, despite what many thought, the dead couldn’t wait forever, and Sherlock was not about to pass up the opportunity to run tests on the body when he had finally talked the widowed wife into letting him see the body.  Scotland Yard had been after an exhumation for months, and the wife would not budge.  Not until Sherlock had gotten a hold of her.

_It won’t take long,_ he promised himself as a sharp, shooting pain in his back made him wince.  Just an hour—two, at the most—and then he would head to the hospital straightaway.  He pushed the pain aside and worked through it, locking the discomfort away and placing it out of his mind.  There was no room for it, anyways—not when he was on a case.  Just like there was no room for hunger or tiredness or any of the other things that would just slow him down.  If anyone noticed the small winces that crossed his face at regular intervals, they didn’t say anything, and for the most part Sherlock managed to keep from reaching a hand out to rub at the painful areas in his abdomen and back, trying to ease the pain.

And before he knew it, he had to push his soaking fringe out of his eyes as he stared hard at the map in front of him, the hair sodden and sticky with sweat.  Little red dots blinked on the large computer screen in front of him, mapping out all of the crimes, taunting him with an unsolved puzzle that no amount of dripping sweat could distract him from.

_Why is it so bloody hot in the damn station_ , he wondered as he rubbed at the hair falling into his eyes, wrist stroking across his forehead.

Oh. Fever.

He knew that wasn’t a good sign.  But he was so close.  _So close…._

Of course.  How could be had been so stupid and not noticed before?...

“It was the step-daughter!”

“Sorry, what?  The who?” Dimmock asked, lifting his head out from the mountain of paperwork it was behind.  There were dark circles under his eyes and his hair was sticking up in strange angles, testament to the amount of time he had put into this case.

“The step-daughter.  It has to be.  Julia Stephens.”

“You sure?” Dimmock asked, not entirely convinced.

Sherlock scoffed, but the sound ended in a gasp that he tried to play off as a cough, as a sharp pain radiated from his lower abdomen and shot down his back to his rectum.

There was no ignoring this, anymore.  Dr. Greenwhich had told him that the signs of labor would feel very much like appendicitis—which, in a medical layman’s sort of way, it technically was—and the bout of nausea that was coming along from the pain he had been feeling was the icing on the cake.

Abdominal pain, fever, nausea.

He knew what this was.  Knew it with a cold chill that was almost enough to break the fever he felt raging in his body.

“I need to get to the hospital,” he gasped out, as everyone around him—Dimmock, and all the other Yarders—rushed about, getting their coats on and gathering what paperwork and guns they would need to apprehend the perpetrator.

Dimmock threw him a confused look as he donned his beige coat on the other side of the table that Sherlock was currently leaning on, strapping his piece to his holster when he finished.  “What are you talking about?  You need to come with us to arrest that psychopath.”

“No,” Sherlock responded, his breath coming in deep pants as a wave of nausea crashed into him.  His hands, slippery with a fine sheet of sweat, gripped at the edges of the desk helplessly, trying to find something to steady himself with.  “I really need to get to a hospital.”  He swallowed noisily, a big gulp of air that did nothing to help his breathing.  “Quickly.”

“Why?” Dimmock asked, standing still in the same spot as everyone else rushed out of the room around him, preparing to leave.  “What’s wrong?”

“I’m about to have a bloody baby,” he managed to gasp out, before the pain and the nausea won out and he reached out quickly to retch into the nearest rubbish bin.

Xxx

The ride to St. Bart’s hospital was not a pleasant one for Sherlock.  Seeing as how he had waited so long before leaving for the clinic, there was no one left at the Yard to take him in except for Lestrade, and he would be damned if he was going to get into an ambulance.  So he had to let the man race him there, alone in the car with him and having to listen to the blasted police siren wailing incessantly above him.

Thankfully Lestrade was too busy making phone calls to have a quiet, uncomfortable moment alone with Sherlock, which the brunette man was eternally grateful for, even as he panted in pain and fever in the front seat, gripping onto the insides of the car and bracing himself as Lestrade took turns too fast and the nausea roiled inside of his stomach disturbingly.

“Maternity ward, please.  Hurry, it’s an emergency!” Lestrade was shouting into the phone, keeping both hands on the wheel as he turned it viciously to round another corner.  “Yes, I’m bringing in Sherlock Holmes.  We’ll be there in just a few minutes.  I think he’s having some trouble, he doesn’t look right.” Lestrade paused for a moment, as the other person spoke over the line.  “He’s been throwing up, and it looks as though he’s got a pretty high fever,” he answered some unheard question.  “No, I’m not the father.  No, I don’t know anything about any of that.  I’m just bringing him in!” the detective inspector suddenly shouted, annoyed.  “How long since the first signs of labor?  Jesus, I don’t—Sherlock,” he turned to the brunette man, and through his delirium Sherlock thought that Lestrade looked more worried than he ought to.  

“When did the pain first start?” he asked, but Sherlock couldn’t seem to comprehend the question.  “Sherlock!  Answer me, you wanker.  They say it’s important—they need to know how long the pain has been going on.”

“I…” he groaned in pain, clenching his teeth and lips around an almost animalistic sound.  “Ah!  Less than an hour.  I think.  Since a bit before Mrs. Holloway came in.”

Lestrade swore.  “You bloody idiot.  That was three hours ago!”

Three?  No, that didn’t seem right.  It felt as though it had only been one, no more.  He had meant to leave to the hospital an hour into the pain.  It couldn’t have been that long since the labor started, it just couldn’t.  It didn’t make any sense.

“Yes, I understand,” he heard Lestrade saying into the phone, his tone more serious than it had been a moment ago.  “We are pulling up now.  We’ll meet you at the emergency entrance.”

“John,” Sherlock gasped out as he was thrown against the dashboard of the car when Lestrade slammed it into park.  He winced as a sharp stab of pain tore through his back and down into his rectum, radiating in waves out from there and into his abdomen.

God, it felt as though he were being torn apart from the inside out.

“Call John.  Need him—”

“I’ve got it, Sherlock, I’ve already made the call,” Lestrade was saying as he leaned over and unbuckled Sherlock’s seatbelt for the man.  “When Dimmock was getting you into the car.  He said he was—”

But Lestrade was cut off as the passenger side door was thrown open, and Sherlock almost fell out of it, not being held up by this seatbelt any longer.

“Sherlock?!  _Sherlock!_ ”

He breathed a sigh of relief as he heard the all too familiar voice of John near him, but his eyes were shut against the pain in his abdomen and he couldn’t seem to force them open, not even to look on John’s face.

“Come on, Lestrade; help the nurses get him onto the gurney.”

He felt hands on him, most rough and unfamiliar, but one pair he knew.  One pair he recognized, even through the pain.

He was glad John was here.  He wouldn’t be able to do this if John wasn’t here; he knew that, deep down.

Eyes still shut tight against the raging pain that was ripping through him, he felt as the nurses, John and Lestrade got him settled onto the gurney and they began to wheel him into the hospital quickly, the sounds and smells of the corridors coming in nauseating waves as he passed them.

When he opened his eyes next, he was in a private hospital room, Lestrade by his bedside as John came in, another man following close behind him.

“Dr. Greenwhich is here, Sherlock,” he heard John say to him, and he tried to focus on the familiar face in front of him.

His John.

He wanted to reach out and touch him, but he couldn’t seem to work his body right.

“I called him when Lestrade told me,” John was saying, leaning in close to him, “and he came right over.  They’re ready to do the surgery, right now.  It’s okay; it’ll all be over soon.”

_It’ll all be over soon.  It’ll all be over soon._

He clung to the words, clung to John’s voice, because he couldn’t cling to John.

He tried to open his mouth to speak to John, but before he could, the blonde man moved aside, out of Sherlock’s line of sight, and Dr. Greenwhich took his place, looking stern and very professional.  Not at all like what he looked in the comfort of his own office.  “Mr. Holmes,” he said, “I want to assure you that everything is going to be okay.  We are prepping the O.R and then we’ll bring in the anesthesiologist and hook up your IV’s.  It shouldn’t be but a few more minutes until we are ready to deliver your baby.  Tell me, how long has it been since the pain started?”

Dr. Greenwhich stared at him for a moment, as Sherlock lay in the bed, lips pressed into a thin line from the pain.

When it seemed as if Sherlock was not going to speak, Lestrade answered for him, a little uncomfortably.  “He told me in the car that it’s been a little over 3 hours.”

Dr. Greenwhich turned to the detective inspector suddenly.  “3 hours?!” he yelled out.  Just as quickly he turned back to Sherlock, eyes wide behind his spectacles.  “Mr. Holmes, you were supposed to come straight in at the first sign of labor!  You were told time and time again how delicate and time-sensitive your labor would be!  Do you know the danger you have put yourself, and your child, in?  The chances that your appendix will rupture before we can even open you up are almost inevitable.  Peritonitis, shock, septicemia…you have raised the chances of all of these things happening now.”

Lecture done, he wasted no more time and ran towards the door of Sherlock’s hospital room, yelling down the corridor.  “Nurse!  Nurse!  Get the anesthesiologist in here at once and tell the surgical staff to hurry and finish preparing the O.R.  We have to operate on Mr. Holmes quickly, before his appendix ruptures, if it hasn’t already.  Let everyone know what is going on.”

From outside of the room, there was the sound of feet pounding against the floor, and several ‘yes, sir’s drifting in through the door.  To Sherlock’s ever growing discomfort, he saw that John had left his side once again, going over to speak to Dr. Greenwhich in hushed, clipped tones, and leaving Lestrade alone by Sherlock’s bedside as the brunette man writhed and gasped in pain.

The anesthesiologist made quick work of him, administering his spinal block with fast, concise movements that didn’t seem at all affected by the sudden emergency and time constraints.  Sherlock was grateful, at least, for the swift end to the worst of the pain he was feeling.  As the numbness spread over his lower half, he felt as though he were finally able to breathe again, and only then could he focus enough of his attention on what was going on around him to understand what was happening.

As Dr. Greenwhich stood talking to John about the surgical procedure and helping the blonde man into the standard issue blue surgical gown that was required for people going into the O.R to observe a Caesarian, one of the nurses escorted Lestrade out of the temporary hospital room that they had wheeled Sherlock’s bed into, before taking him to the O.R.

“Do you understand the consequences of Mr. Holmes’ decision to not come in sooner, Dr. Watson?” he heard Greenwhich asking John, and turned his attention onto the pair of them, his movements decidedly disconnected and his senses a bit fuzzy and slow around the edges.

“Yes, Dr. Greenwhich.  I understand completely.”

Just then another nurse entered his room, calm and polite.  “The O.R is ready, Doctor.  You can bring him in now.”

“Let’s get started then, shall we?  Nurse, bring him around, so we can get him into that O.R and deliver his baby.”

Xxx

Sherlock had said once—what now seemed to him to be a very long time ago—that he had never begged for mercy for anything in his life.  He had spoken the truth that day, standing in his flat as Irene Adler stared at him and spoke of wanting to take him on his desk until he begged for mercy twice, and John sat awkwardly quiet on the other side of the room. 

Nothing in his life had ever been so awful, so foul, so unmanageable, that he had ever done something as disgusting as _begging_ for an end to it.

Until this very moment.

He would gladly give away all of his pride, he would beg and plead and grovel, if someone would just make the pain _go away_!  The damned spinal block only seemed to be taking the edge off of it, but there was the most uncomfortable, disconnected sort of pressure in his lower half that felt so very very wrong, and all of the pain that radiated above the vertebrae that had been injected with the numbing agent seemed to be inhumanly intolerable, as if making up for the fact that he could not feel the sharp jabs of agony in his lower half.  He had been told that the pain of his labor and delivery would not be as easy to manage as that of a woman’s (if anyone could say such a thing was possible) because of the imminent appendicitis that his labor would bring on.  Usually, a general anesthetic was administered for an appendectomy, and the patient would be, blissfully, unconscious for the whole ordeal.  But the doctors needed Sherlock awake, in case complications arose with the Caesarian, just like with any other C-section delivery.

For this, all it meant to Sherlock was that he was in a type of pain that no one, man or woman, had yet to experience this side of the medical revolution.  Caught between the two worlds of an everyday, run of the mill Caesarian, and a just-as-common appendectomy, neither of which were as normal as they would appear to be.

Once he was wheeled and placed into the large, brightly lit O.R, he couldn’t take it any longer.  His pride had left him long ago, months, it seemed now.  36 weeks.

“Please,” he whimpered as the surgical staff rushed around him, setting up the cloths needed to separate and section off the surgical area of his body, hooking him up to all sorts of strange machines, and he didn’t care who heard him.  “Make it stop.”

“We can’t, Sherlock,” a familiar voice answered him, but he couldn’t see who was speaking through all of the nurses surrounding him, placing IVs and small suctions on his chest to monitor his heartbeat.  “It will be fine; you’ll make it through this.  You’re doing so well already.”

“John?”  He thought that was John who was speaking to him, but his eyes would not focus on anything through the pain.  Bright lights and stranger’s faces floating in and out of his unfocused vision was all he could see.  Doctors and nurses and medical equipment.  “John!”

“I’m here, Sherlock.” 

Yes, he recognized John’s voice now, strong and steady and comforting.  He vaguely felt someone grab his hand in a disconnected sort of way, as though the nerve endings and receptors of his body weren’t quite reaching completely to his brain properly.

The spinal block, working harder to block out and numb his receptors.

He turned his head so that he could see John, and he found it a more difficult task than it should have been.  There was still an intense pressure that radiated throughout his body from his lower abdomen, but the edges of his consciousness were beginning to feel slightly fuzzy and faint.  His eyes sought out John’s, and the doctor squeezed his hand hard, forehead furrowed and mouth set in a determined line. 

“I can’t do this,” Sherlock whispered, the words only for John to hear.  John was the only one who Sherlock would let see him this way, scared and full of self-doubt.  Only ever John.  “I never should have done this.  I don’t know what I was thinking.”  His voice broke of its own volition, and Sherlock could feel tears, hot and unheeded, stinging at the corners of his eyes.  “I was wrong.”

John bent over the operating table, low, so that Sherlock’s broken whispers reached only him.  “Hush, Sherlock,” he said, brushing at a strand of dark hair that had come loose from under the hospital hair net that the nurse had put on him earlier.  Sherlock cursed the fact that he could only just feel the tips of John’s fingers as they brushed over his cheek and across his eyebrow—John’s hands were always so soft and warm, comforting.  Sherlock would give anything to shake off the anesthetic and feel them right now. 

“You _can_ do this,” John was whispering to him, voice soft and steady as the nurses and the doctors bustled noisily around them.  There was a tremendous jab of pain coming from his upper abdomen, above the spinal block, and he winced, drawing in a shaky breath through clenched teeth.  “You _will_.  You were not wrong—you’re never wrong.”  John’s face was close to his, his voice was surrounding him, and Sherlock could do nothing but close his eyes against the pain, against the sounds of the dozens of machines he was hooked up to beeping away steadily, against the bright white walls of the operating room he was in. 

“I was the one who was wrong,” John was saying, and Sherlock tried hard to focus on the words coming out of John’s mouth, on the feel of John’s hand in his own.  “I never should have left you like that.  I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  I keep messing everything up and crawling back to you.”  John’s voice broke then, and that scared Sherlock more than the pain, more than the preterm labor, more than the knife he knew would soon be cutting him open while he lay awake on the cold, hard operating bed.  “I’ve no excuse for it—it’s inexcusable, anyways,” John continued, and Sherlock couldn’t be sure if that was one of his own tears sliding down his cheek or one of John’s.  “But you’re doing great now, Sherlock.  It won’t be much longer.  Just hold in there.”

_It won’t be much longer, it won’t be much longer…God, please don’t let it be much longer!_   He tried to rationalize, calm himself down, but it was not working.  For once his mind, always so simplistic, ever scientific, was in a panic from the pain, from the fear, and nothing he said to calm himself down was working.

“Mr. Holmes,” he suddenly heard from the other side of the curtain, the words slightly muffled by the surgical mask of the doctor who was talking to him.  “We are going to open you up now.  You will feel an uncomfortable pressure, but the spinal block is in full effect.  It should not be painful.”

_Oh, God._

If he thought he was panicking before, it was nothing compared to what he was feeling now.

Desperation.  Terror.  An all-encompassing dread that shut down all thought in his brain save for one overwhelming fear, which would not be rationalized into silence no matter how hard he tried.

“John, it’s too early!” he managed to gasp out, past the tightening of his throat.  He tried to reach out for John’s arm, wanting to feel more of him, wanting the contact to ground him and bring him back to the moment, so that he could just bloody _think clearly_!  But his arm wasn’t moving the way he wanted it to, and he could do nothing but lie there, helpless as he felt the first pull of what must be the scalpel cutting into him.  “It’s too early, I know it.  I…I’m scared it will—”

“No, Sherlock,” John cut him off, trying his hardest to stay calm and keep his voice steady, but Sherlock had always been able to read John like a book, drugged or not.  The deep frown lines in John’s forehead were still there, and the tears in his eyes couldn’t lie, no matter what the sound of his voice said.  “Everything is fine.  Everything will be fine.  You’ve nothing to be scared of.  I’m here.  I’ll be here with you the whole time.  We’ll get through this together.  I…I love you.”

Another hard tug.  It felt dully as if they were pulling him apart.  “John!  I—I’m scared!”

“I know, love.  I know.  I’m sorry.  Just breathe through it.” 

“No, I can’t.”  The words were broken apart in a sob and a wince as a sharp jab of pain worked its way along the upper half of his spine, crawling above the spinal block.

“Yes, you can,” John was telling him, his tone stern now and slightly militant, like all the other times John tried to make Sherlock do something the brunette didn’t want to do.  “Just like they went over in the delivery class, remember?  Just breathe.”

“Too much.”

He saw John give a crooked little smile at his words, and it calmed Sherlock to see that look on the blonde’s face.  “Nothing is ever too much for you,” John told him softly.  “You’re Sherlock Holmes for Christ’s sake!  You are the bravest, smartest, strongest man that I know.”  He reached out to touch Sherlock’s cheek again, and Sherlock clung to the feeling of John’s hand like a lifeline, trying to use it to drown out the uncomfortable pressure he was feeling on the rest of his body.  “I would never have been able to do this, Sherlock.  Only you.  Only you had the courage to do this for us.  And only you can finish this, Sherlock.  Now come on.  Do this for us.  Do this for yourself.  Show me how strong you really are.”

Sherlock knew that set of John’s eyebrows.  It was the look he wore when they were close to solving a case, or when Sherlock was too tired to think clearly anymore, or too hard on himself.  It was John’s war face, and it somehow always managed to rouse Sherlock into fighting just a little bit harder, thinking just a little bit clearer, holding on just a little bit longer.

“We are into the appendix now,” he heard Dr. Greenwhich say from the other side of the curtain.  “We will be performing the Caesarian and then afterwards we will complete the appendectomy.  Dr. Stapp, be ready to perform the removal as soon as we deliver the baby.”

John smiled suddenly, and it was so bright and shiny that Sherlock was mesmerized by it for a moment, breathless from the beauty of it.  “Do you hear that, Sherlock?” he asked, but Sherlock was finding it harder and harder to understand John’s words.  “They’ve almost got him out.  Just a bit longer, love.”

He didn’t feel right.  Something was wrong.  His vision was swimming now, more unfocused than it had been since the anesthetic had kicked in.  He was losing feeling in his lower half completely—blissfully—but a part of his brain that was running on overdrive was trying to tell him that that wasn’t right.

“John?” he called out, but he wasn’t sure if he actually said anything or not.  It was all becoming so fuzzy.

From across the curtain he heard the voices again, louder this time, and panicked now.  “Nurse, we need to pull the baby out now or else he is going to go septic.  We must remove the appendix.  It’s been too long!”

His eyesight was wavering disconcertingly now, and it was getting harder and harder to draw a breath.  There was a great pressure on his chest, one that seemed like it was crushing him, and he felt like he wasn’t getting nearly enough oxygen.

“John?” he called out again, but no one was paying attention to him anymore.  All eyes, including John’s, were focused on what was happening behind the blue curtain that separated Sherlock’s head and chest from the rest of his body, which made it impossible for him to see what was going on.

“He’s out!” Dr. Greenwhich’s disconnected voice shouted, relieved.  “We’ve got him!  Nurse, get him cleaned up while I assist Dr. Stapp with the appendectomy.”

There was movement from behind the curtain, and a nurse—the front of her blue gown stained a disgusting bright red—walked quickly to one side of the O.R, to Sherlock’s left.  He followed her with his eyes and tried to comprehend the still, quiet bundle of blood and fluid in her arms.

And then John was in his line of sight, making his way over to the nurse and leaving Sherlock alone.  Sherlock wanted to call out to him again, tell him to come back, that he couldn’t do this without John by his side every step of the way, but he couldn’t draw enough breath to speak. 

Across the room, John’s voice cut through the rest of the racket being made, shrill and wavering and full of a fear that Sherlock had heard one too many times before.  A fear that had always stopped Sherlock’s heart dead in his chest because he had come to realize that when John spoke in that tone, someone was close to dying, and only luck and timing and fate could save them.

“He’s not breathing.  Why is he not breathing?”

“Dr. Watson, please, step back.  Suction, give me suction!”

“He’s not breathing!  He isn’t breathing!”

“Dr. Watson!”

“John!” 

He heard his voice that time, dry and broken and frightened, but he was being ignored because something else was happening.  Something that was making the nurses scurry about and the doctors rush around to check the machines for numbers and stats and lines.

There was a high pitched, steady beep coming from the machines he was hooked up to, unbroken and flat.  Loud.

So loud that it dominated every sense that he had.  His breathing stopped from the insistence of it, his ears drowned out all other sounds.  Even his eyesight dulled to a consistent point, fuzzy around the edges and turning black.

“Doctor, we’re losing him!”

He wanted to call out to John again, but he had used up all of his breath, all of his energy, everything he had, already.  He felt as though he had nothing left in him, nothing left to give, nothing left to use.

Around him the voices continued still, hurried and distant and disconnected.  “He’s gone septic!  Bring the crash cart and finish the surgery!  Dr. Stapp, we need to intubate now!”

From the other side of the room the sound of a baby’s scream broke the air, brittle and new and brash, and Sherlock wished for a split second that he could see the infant that had produced the sound before the darkness consumed him completely, and he thought no more.

Xxx

When he awoke, there was a soft beeping surrounding him, and the sound of familiar snoring close by.  The room he was in was dark, but there was a low light on in a room off to the side, casting everything in a yellowish sort of glow.  The smell of antiseptics and rubbing alcohol surrounded him, burning his nostrils slightly, and the bed that he was lying in was stiff and uncomfortable, the sheet covering him scratchy and thin.

A hospital room, no doubt.

As his vision began to focus a bit more and he took a closer look at his surroundings, he saw that his assumption had been correct.  He was in a private room, with his own bath and a single fold out couch that John was ignoring in favor of falling asleep sitting upright in an uncomfortable looking chair, feet propped carefully at the foot of Sherlock’s bed so that they didn’t tug on his…

He winced as he became aware of the catheter that was currently shoved into him.  Well, now that he was awake, that would have to come out soon.  He would see to it.

The small television that was bolted into the upper wall in one corner of his room, facing his bed, was on, the volume turned down low, and one of John’s favorite crap tv shows was playing, testament that the man must have only recently fallen asleep.  If the dark circles under John’s eyes were any indication, Sherlock could assume that the blonde man hadn’t been sleeping much.

Suddenly, a small sound—what could only be described as a whimper—broke the almost-silence of the room, and along with it was a soft rustle of cloth.  Frowning, Sherlock scanned the room for the source, and his eyes landed on a tall, square cart that was resting to one side of John, between the blonde man and Sherlock’s bed.  And inside it, tucked warmly into a blanket and tiny little cotton beanie cap was a baby.

His baby.

His heart skipped a beat and his breath caught in his throat. 

This was the first time he had seen the infant since his quick, bleary glimpse of it in the O.R, when the nurse had whisked him off to the other side of the room to get cleaned and be taken care of.  He vaguely remembered that there had been a problem, the tiny infant had not been breathing, but Sherlock sat there for a long moment and listened to the reassuring, soft sounds of his baby inhaling and exhaling in tiny puffs of air, making small sounds of contentment in its sleep and pursing its lips again and again, as if dreaming of suckling.

His baby.

His little boy.

He sat up in bed and propped his pillows behind his back, then reached careful hands out (mindful of his IV’s) to pick the infant up and bring him towards his chest, holding him for the first time.  As he moved about and settled the baby into his arms, he became aware that his stomach was sore, most likely from the incisions that had been made to get to his appendix, and he had to rearrange the infant and get himself into a better position, sitting up taller and wincing at the loss of energy and shooting pains that so simple a task caused.

But it was worth it, to be able to hold his son in his arms and look down into his sleeping face as he held him.

From underneath the small, blue hospital-issue cap, Sherlock could see a shock of dark hair peeking out in curly little tendrils all around his head.  His eyebrows, too, were dark colored.  He was tiny.  Far too tiny for Sherlock’s liking.  Yet his breathing was unlabored and Sherlock knew that the doctors would not allow the infant out of the NICU if there were any major health concerns.

No. For the most part, as far as Sherlock could tell, the baby was healthy.  Healthy, and handsome.  A perfect human specimen.

He took one of his fingers and rubbed it softly over his baby’s eyebrow, the digit looking deceivingly large in comparison to the tiny little head, and the infant let out a surprisingly loud gurgle in his sleep, making Sherlock chuckle and John stir in the chair next to the hospital bed.

“Sh’lock?” John mumbled sleepily, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes.  “You awake?”

“I am, John,” he responded, giving the doctor a few moments to pull himself together.  He knew it always took John a minute to fully wake up enough to realize what was going on when the doctor was exceedingly exhausted.

He saw John reach a hand over to the cart that he had grabbed the baby out of, still half asleep, as if it was nothing more than habit, and when the blonde man’s hand touched nothing in the hospital-issue crib, Sherlock saw John snap awake, alert in an instant.  He eyes automatically went to Sherlock, sitting up in the bed holding their son, and a glorious smile split his face, so deep and wide that the small dimples he had by the corners of his lips appeared.

“You’re awake,” he repeated, clearer this time, and he quickly stood up and began fussing over the brunette man, checking his temperature, his pulse, trying to get a good look at his pupils in the dim light.

“I am,” he said, frowning and trying to duck away as John’s hands continued to poke at him.  Finally, when he realized that he couldn’t get very far away, stuck in the hospital bed as he was with a growing soreness in his abdomen, he snapped out, “John, would you please stop fussing over me?”

The doctor at least had the good grace to look sheepish.  “Er, sorry,” he apologized, and Sherlock could see a faint blush coloring his cheeks in the dimness of the room.  “It’s just…I’ve been worried.”

Sherlock became suddenly very aware that the last time he had seen John while still in his right mind (and not in the panic or pain of labor), he had not said very nice things to his lover.  But he opted to take the high road and ignore that nagging little issue for as long as he could.  He cleared his throat in the suddenly awkward silence, and instead asked “How long have I been asleep?”

John, for the most part, seemed happy with the change in topic, and he finally settled down enough to sit back in his chair.  As Sherlock stared at him more, he slowly began to see all the little things about John that told the brunette man what John had been up to since Sherlock had been unconscious.  The dark circles under his eyes indicating a loss of sleep; the old, stale coffee stains on his plaid shirt that were testament to the man’s tiredness—John never drank coffee when tea would suffice; the shadow of a beard that was growing, telling Sherlock that John hadn’t had the time or energy to shave in several days.

“A little over a week,” came John’s reply, as Sherlock took in all of the information he gathered and put it all together.

He had been unconscious for over a week, and John had not left his hospital room, except to maybe go get a cuppa down in the cafeteria and perhaps a small overnight bag that had been all but used up.  But rather than bring all of this to the attention of the blonde man, he said instead “What happened?  I can’t really remember much, it’s all a little…blurry,” he complained with a frown.

“Your appendix had ended up bursting before they took you into the O.R,” John explained to him, trying to settle into a more comfortable position on the hard little chair, to no avail.  “Once it perforated, it spilt infectious materials into your abdominal cavity and led to peritonitis.  Septicemia set in too quickly for them to stop it.” 

John stopped fidgeting for a moment and looked at Sherlock squarely.  “The shock to your system was pretty bad,” he told the brunette, and Sherlock knew that was John-code for ‘you almost died, you tosser’.  “They had to remove your appendix and purge your abdominal cavity,” the doctor continued, his voice going soft.  “Once they had you stabilized, they kept you under anesthesia for a bit longer, and have been pumping you full of Cefuroxime and Metronidazole ever since, to help kill the bacteria and reduce the spread of infection in your abdomen and to make sure that any postoperative complications in the abdomen or wound haven’t come up.”

Sherlock let the news sink in.  It was a little hard to grasp, seeing as he didn’t have any recollection of it.  “Over a week?” he asked, at a loss for anything else to say.  “And…” he looked down at the sleeping baby in his arms.

“Little Callum spent the first week of his life in an incubator, being injected with steroids so that the doctors were sure his lungs would strengthen up.”

“Callum?” Sherlock asked, looking back at John.  He was beginning to feel a little light-headed from so much information that he remembered nothing about.  It was disconcerting.

“Oh, right,” John said with another sheepish look and a sideways grin.  “I had to name him.  I wanted to wait, but everyone was pretty adamant that he be called something other than ‘Baby Boy Holmes’, and I knew how much you had liked that name, and that it was the only one we could semi-agree on….I—I hope you don’t mind…”

“No,” Sherlock said quickly, looking down at the small baby in his arms.  “No, I don’t mind.  Callum,” he repeated, saying the name to the infant and smiling at the way it felt on his tongue.  “It’s perfect.”

“Good,” John said, still smiling and finally relaxing back into the chair he sat in.  “I’m glad you think so.”

Sherlock stared at the baby in his arms for a moment.  Little Callum.  And then he realized that he didn’t know anything else about his baby. 

“Does he have a middle name?” he asked quietly.

At that question, John blushed furiously, and Sherlock got a distinct sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“About that,” John stammered, looking away from Sherlock suddenly.  “I was feeling a bit pressured to name him, and I…I’m sorry, Sherlock.”

The sinking feeling grew, and Sherlock’s breath caught in his chest.  “Why?” he asked.  “What happened?”

John tried to smile at him happily, but the look came out more like a grimace.  “Say hello to your son, Callum Hamish Watson Holmes.”

“John!”

“I know you didn’t like that name,” John tried to explain in a hurry, a scared look coming over his face, “but the nurses kept telling me I needed to choose, and I didn’t want to _not_ give him a middle name!”

He held out a hand to stop John’s rush of words and give himself a moment to think.  “It’s all right, I guess,” he lied, because, really, he only cared about one thing.  “His last name _is_ hyphenated, though, correct?”

Once again John blushed ferociously, the color even darker on his cheeks than the last one.

“ _John_!” Sherlock exclaimed again, with a groan, letting his head fall back onto his bed pillow.

“I’m sorry, Sherlock!” John apologized.  “But I’d never named someone before; I didn’t even think about needing to put the hyphen in there—I guess I thought that that was something we just did ourselves when we wrote out his name!”

He tried not to panic.  He could make his peace with the awful middle name, he knew, and he even kind of liked the fact that his son now carried a piece of John’s family history with him wherever he went, but he had been very adamant about the last names, and his stomach roiled uncomfortably at the fact that his child was now stuck with two separate surnames forever, and not a combined one.

He took a moment to gather himself again, while John sat quietly in the chair next to him, throwing him cautious looks every few seconds.  He took a deep, calming breath, and exhaled, deciding to let go of all of the worries and irrational fears that he had associated with his last name for now.  There was nothing they could do to change it, after all.

Instead, Sherlock focused his mind on something else.  Anything.

“They’ve let him out of the NICU?” he asked, to change the subject.

John seemed happy enough with the new conversation starter and nodded.  “Yesterday was his first day out, but only for a couple hours at a time.  I figured the nurse would come in and wake me when he had to go back—I must have just fallen asleep when you woke up.”

“So then everything is fine?” Sherlock urged, wanting to be sure, needing to know.  “There were no other complications?  He’s healthy?”

John gave him a reassuring smile and reached a hand out to stoke Callum’s cheek softly while Sherlock still held him.  “The doctors want him to gain a bit more weight, and eat better,” John replied.  “He can’t take more than 2 ounces at a time right now.  But he’s getting better.  Once he gains a pound or so they say he can go home.”

“He can go home,” Sherlock repeated.  And then, before he could stop himself, he inquired, “With both of us?”

The unasked, _“Will you be going home with us, too?”_ hung in the air, brittle and breakable, as Sherlock stared at John silently from his position on the bed, and John stared back at him.

And then, finally, John drew breath to speak, and his answer left Sherlock feeling as faint and light-headed as all the previous disconnected information John had just given him.

“Yeah, Sherlock.  With both of us.”

Xxx

It seemed as if some previously unidentified disease had taken over his body.  He could not eat, could not sleep, could not pass a single solitary moment without wanting Callum by his side.  He found it amusing that he could spend hours wide awake and tending to his baby, while John struggled to keep his eyes open.  Years of depriving his body of the small comforts of everyday life seemed to have prepared him for this moment, when the nurses would bring Callum in at odd intervals during the day and night to see him and be fed, heedless of his own recuperation.

He didn’t understand how John could sleep when Callum was in the room.  How could the blonde man sit there, dozing, when his child was suckling so interestingly on a bottle, when he was stretching his little arms out, when he was looking alertly around the room as if trying to understand everything he was seeing?

How could John possibly dream of missing these precious moments with his baby?

“John.  John, wake up,” he nudged the man one night, a couple of days after he had first woken up.  It was the dead middle of the night, but Sherlock barely noticed it.  He had been up for a while now, woken from a nap by the constant parade of nurses that came into his hospital room to check his stats and vitals.  He had found that, as he recuperated from the peritonitis that was his biggest concern at the moment, he had lost the need for most of the very normal acts of eating and sleeping that being pregnant had brought out in him.

John wasn’t as happy of that fact as Sherlock was.

“Leave me alone, Sherlock,” he grumbled from the chair that was constantly by Sherlock’s hospital bed.  He was reclined back in it at the moment, feet sitting squarely on the floor and his arms crossed over his chest, one of the thin, scratchy hospital blankets thrown haphazardly over him.  Sherlock had made him go back to wherever it was that he had been staying and do a load of laundry and have a shave, so he looked slightly more presentable than he had in days, but he had still refused to let Sherlock talk him into catching a few hours’ sleep in an actual bed, so the small rejuvenation was purely cosmetic.

“Look,” Sherlock continued to pester him.  “You have to watch this.  Callum’s finished his whole bottle.”

John didn’t even crack an eye.  He only shuffled a bit in the creaky wooden chair and made a noise of appreciation in his throat.  “Hmm, yes.  Very good,” he said sleepily.

“You didn’t even look,” Sherlock grumbled, frowning at him.

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn’t.  Your eyes are still closed.”

John sighed suddenly and moved violently on the chair, trying to get into a more comfortable position to no avail.  The object groaned in protest underneath him.  “Please, Sherlock, for the love of all that is good and holy…let me get some sleep.  I’m so tired.”

“Fine,” Sherlock said haughtily, making a face at John that the other man couldn’t see through his still-closed eyelids.  “Sleep your son’s life away, then.  See if I wake you up for anything wonderful that he does when you’re napping through all of his greatest achievements.”

“It’s just a bottle, Sherlock,” John mumbled sleepily, still not opening his eyes.  “There will be billions more just like it over the next couple of years.  Trust me.”

The other man was right, of course.  And Sherlock had to remind himself that John didn’t have the same mental and physical prowess that Sherlock himself had—of course John’s weaker, untrained mind and body would need more of those basic necessities than Sherlock’s.

He let the poor man drift off to sleep in the chair beside his bed, occupying himself with tending to Callum and watching as John tossed and turned on the uncomfortable chair, looking for a better position.  It seemed that the blonde man found one when he finally leaned forward in the chair and rested his head on the foot of Sherlock’s bed, arms tucked under his cheek to pillow himself.

As he watched John and Callum, and listened to all the noises that the two made in the silence of his room, he thought of that night at the pool when he had met Moriarty for the first (true) time.  When the man had threatened to burn Sherlock’s heart right out of him.  Sherlock had responded by saying that he had been reliably informed that he did not have one, and Moriarty had effectively proven that that was, indeed, not true.

Sherlock did have a heart, as it turned out.  And housed inside of it were all those distracting, disgusting feelings of love and trust and friendship that he carried for only a handful of people.  He had had to come to terms with that fact years ago, when he had faced Moriarty’s grand scheme.

He had had to come to terms with those feelings and the fact that those feelings were attached to certain people…and in the center of those few people was John Watson.  His first true friend and his only true love.  He had not thought that anyone could take up more space in his heart or that the fear of losing anyone could be greater than what he felt for John.

What a fool he was.

Because this…this little being who was barely big enough to fit in his arms, who could barely hold its own eyes open and who he had only seen for the first time less than a few days ago, _consumed him_.

He could think of nothing else, could not get enough of holding him, touching him, watching him.  It was like the thinnest needle being pressed into this vein and injecting the headiest drug—it was better than anything he had ever taken in the past, far more addictive and dangerous and overwhelming.

He didn’t even think about how all of this could be transmitted as data; recorded and written down and neatly logged away.  None of that mattered at the moment.  There was nothing except him and his baby, asleep in his arms, and John, passed out in the rickety little chair by the foot of his bed, shaggy blonde head resting on the mattress by Sherlock’s blanket-covered feet.

Xxx

He was going crazy.

Well and truly crazy.

He was sick of the nurses coming in constantly to check on him, he was sick of them dictating when he could see his son and when he could not, he was sick of the food they kept trying to force him to eat, sick of the ramshackle bed he was confined to, sick of the bare white walls that surrounded him constantly.

“How much longer do I have to stay in this hell-hole?” he asked John for the hundredth time in the past 3 days, kicking at the horrible little hospital bed sheet around his feet.

John sighed before answering him, because the response was the same, and Sherlock knew that he knew that.  “They are releasing you both tomorrow.  Now, settle down and just try to enjoy your last day here.  Think of it as being on vacation.  A vacation where they serve you really horrible food.”

Sherlock scoffed and handed his lunch plate to John wordlessly.  The blonde man rolled his eyes and began spooning large portions of beef stew into his mouth, making faces all the while.

The only way Sherlock managed to keep the nursing staff off of his back was to present an empty food plate to them when they came to pick up the dishes.  Little did they know that John had been the one emptying all of his plates for the past few days, albeit unhappily, in return for Sherlock staying confined to his awful little hospital bed.  And although John stated that he had never eaten anything as disgusting as the food that the hospital served, Sherlock still felt as though he were the one with the worse end of the deal.

Later that night, as Sherlock lay awake once again and John dozed on the sleeper couch against the far wall of Sherlock’s room, he began to truly comprehend the fact that he and his baby would be released the next day, and the thought brought about a slight panic in him.

He and John would be taking their child, and going home with him.

To a place where there was not a nurse who would come and take him away after a few hours, where there was not a neat little call button attached to Sherlock’s bed for any of the things he might need help with, where there was not a trained staff on hand if something were to go wrong.

The nurses had brought Callum in a bit ago, and Sherlock had fed, burped and changed him rather methodically.  Now the baby lay in his hospital issue crib, flailing his arms and legs about as Sherlock stared at him and tried not to let the panic sink in.

But all he could think of was the hundreds of possible ways that something bad could happen to his son, just from being in Sherlock’s mediocre care.

When John snorted himself awake, sometime later, he rubbed at his face tiredly and checked the time on his wrist watch, throwing Sherlock a confused look after he saw the hour of the night.

“What are you doing, Sherlock?” he asked, his voice hoarse with exhaustion.  “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing, John,” he mumbled in answer to the man’s questions.  “I have no idea.  No clue.”  He continued to stare at Callum, lying contently in his crib, and made no other movement, not even bothering to grace John with a look.  “How am I supposed to do this?  What if I make a mess out of it, like I make a mess out of everything else?”

John didn’t even have to ask what Sherlock was talking about.  It was as if he knew already.  He sat up on the couch quietly, and stood, making his way over to where Sherlock was sitting on the edge of his own bed, staring at Callum. 

“You won’t, Sherlock,” he reassured the man when he reached him, stretching out a warm hand to rest on Sherlock’s shoulder, in what the brunette assumed was supposed to be a comforting gesture.

It did not help.

“How do you know, John?” he asked, and he was slightly ashamed that the panic had broken through the tight rein he had put on it, and now seeped out into his voice, making him sound desperate and scared.

“Because I’m going to be right there beside you, Sherlock,” John answered swiftly, without a pause.  He stood close to Sherlock, and the brunette man could feel his warmth, his steadiness, his strength, through the chill of his own anxiety.  “We’ll figure it out together.  All of it.  From the 3 am feedings and the constant crying to the crawling and the walking and the running away.”

But Sherlock didn’t believe him.  Couldn’t.  He held no delusions of grandeur about himself.  His flaws, he knew, were not conducive to having a child in his life.  Someone who depended on him to be unselfish and attentive, to give and love and devote himself to.  He could barely do that with John, and now there was someone else who would need all of that from him.  Someone who….

“I don’t think I can do it,” he said with a rough shake of his head.  “I’m going to wreck it.  I just know I am.”  And the words that he had been keeping in, the worst fear that he had buried deep down for the past few days, because he couldn’t bear to think about it, came out then, broken and painful to hear and to say.

“He almost died because I couldn’t give up on a case.  A case, John.”  His voice wavered and cracked, and he felt the edges of his eyes prickle with the hot sting of tears.  “I couldn’t even get his birth right.  I would have lost him, and you, and everything I hold dear in my life.  For what?  A puzzle, a riddle?  The answer to a stupid question that doesn’t really matter, in the end?”

He turned away from Callum, finally, to look at John desperately, reaching shaking hands out to cling to the other man and pull him close, hugging him tightly.  “But I know that I won’t ever know when enough is enough, John,” he said in a tearful whisper into John’s chest, burying his face in the man’s sweater as John stood him, reciprocating the hug but unnerved by Sherlock’s sudden show of emotion.  

“I won’t,” he continued, voice muffled by John’s shirt, “because it’s an addiction to me.  And I need help to work through it.  I need your help.  I need you there, beside me, telling me when to quit, when to call it a day.  I need you beside me telling me when I need to eat, when I need to sleep, when I need to smile for the cameras and just shut my mouth and say ‘thank you’.  I need you for all of those small things in my life, which I can’t do on my own.  And I need your help with this, too.  With him.  I’ll be utterly lost without you.”

John’s hands were moving on his back, through his hair, over his face.  Making soothing trails back and forth.  “I know, Sherlock,” he whispered back in response.  “I know.  I’ll be right beside you, every step of the way.  I promise.”

Sherlock breathed in the musky scent of John, letting the smell pervade his senses.  He buried his face deeper into the man’s chest, drawing comfort from John’s words and John’s presence and John’s touch.

Yes, he knew that John would be beside him.  He knew that John would hold him up, make things better, easier.  He clung to John’s promise like a drowning man would cling to a life preserve.  And he thought of all of the other promises that John had made him, that John had kept, especially over the course of his pregnancy.

He lifted his head from John’s chest suddenly, looking up at his partner for one of the few times that they had known each other.  “Cross your heart and hope to die?” he asked with bleary eyes and a small chuckle.

He received an answering smile and small peck on the lips in response. 

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” John swore.

Xxx

“We haven’t found a nanny yet,” John said to him, as Sherlock went about getting dressed in the clothes that Mrs. Hudson had brought over from Baker Street earlier that day, in preparation for his imminent release from the St. Bart’s prison he had been held captive in for over 2 weeks.  “We’ll need one for when you’re ready to go back to work.  One who doesn’t mind keeping odd hours.  A live-in might be best, considering you’re always out at all hours of the day when you’re on a case.”

Sherlock turned to the small mirror that hung on one wall, looking at himself as objectively as he could in the wan light of the hospital room.  He looked more drained than usual, even when he was on a particularly arduous case.  The septicemia and peritonitis had taken a toll on him, and even the fatigue from the emotional labor and delivery of Callum was still present.  His movements were still a bit stiff and slow, especially when standing up or stretching, thanks to the stitches in his abdomen, but his now loose maternity shirts were a great relief, as they didn’t hug his frame the way his pre-pregnancy clothes usually did.  He was slightly thankful that Mrs. Hudson had had the foresight to bring one of the larger shirts for him, and not an older one.

“Don’t worry about that, John,” he told the blonde man, doing up the top buttons of his shirt in the mirror.  “It’s already taken care of.”

“It is?” John asked skeptically, as he went about helping Sherlock pack up.  “Who did you find to watch the baby?”

Done with his shirt buttons, Sherlock went on to inspect his face in the reflection of the mirror.  The dark circles under his eyes were made all the more prominent-looking by his naturally pale skin and striking ethereal eyes, making him look more tired than he felt, and his fringe was falling limply into his eyes.  He could not wait until he got back to Baker Street and was able to take a proper shower, with some decent water pressure to wash off the feel of the hospital that was currently crawling all over him.

“Mrs. Hudson, of course,” he answered John simply, not bothering to elaborate.

John stared at him with an incredulous frown for a moment before speaking.

“Mrs. Hudson?” he repeated.  “The woman who constantly says that she’s not our housekeeper?  Who specifically told us that she wasn’t going to be watching after the baby when we told her about you being pregnant?”  He put down the pillow that he had been fluffing, trying to make Sherlock’s hospital bed a bit more presentable for when the nurses came in to release him.  “Did you actually ask her to be our nanny, or is this like that time you decided she was going to be our secretary, and had all of the calls for our cases forwarded over to her flat?”

Sherlock scoffed at John’s accusation.  Like he would make the same mistake twice.  “No, John,” he said.  “I discussed it with her weeks ago, and she agreed.  Actually agreed,” he stressed, when he saw John open his mouth to interject.

“Why would she agree to it?” John asked after a moment.  He still wore a frown on his face, confused that Sherlock, of all people, could get Mrs. Hudson to agree to being under their employ.

“It is not as odd as you seem to think, John,” Sherlock explained, turning away from the mirror to continue packing his few belongings away.  “Since I bought 221 Baker Street, she is not going to have the income from the tenants that she relied on in the past.  When I purchased the property, I explained everything to her, and assured her that there would still be room for her to stay, if she so chose.  The insurance check that she got after the arson was sufficient enough to pay for her rent for a few years, but still, without the revenue that she had coming in from other tenants when she was the landlord, she needed a small job for some extra pocket-change.  When I proposed the idea to her, she was actually quite pleased with the contract, seeing as how she no longer has the burdensome stress of being landlord to people who have no respect for her home.”

“You’re the one who shot holes in her wall all the time,” John reminded him quickly.

Sherlock shrugged and threw his toothbrush and the rest of his toiletries into the overnight bag John had been using while he stayed at the hospital with Sherlock.  “Yes, well, she doesn’t have to worry about that anymore, now does she?  They are my walls, now.”

John was saved the need to respond by one of the nurses coming in to the room then, Callum in tow.

“Hello,” she said, brightly.  Sherlock hated the constant cheeriness of the nurses almost as much as he hated the hospital food that they tried to shove down his throat with a smile every day.  “How are we feeling today?”

“Very well,” Sherlock responded with a fake smile and a mocking cheeriness in his tone.  “I can’t even tell that only a couple of weeks ago something the size of a St. Bernard was ripped out of me.  I’m feeling just peachy.”

“Good,” the nurse said, still smiling, and Sherlock was beginning to understand that only John ever really understood his use of sarcasm.  “They are ready for you to sign all the papers, when you want.”  She gave Sherlock a suddenly sharp, quizzical look.  “Excited to take little Callum Holmes home, then?” she asked, her tone suddenly gone serious.  “Think you can handle it?”

Sherlock tried to ignore the fact that people were already starting to call his baby only by ‘Holmes’ and thought back to the previous night, and the conversation he had had with John.

And John’s promise resounded once more in his mind, strong and clear.

John chose that moment to come up beside him, reaching out to take Sherlock’s hand in his own.  When the brunette turned to look at him, he saw that John was smiling reassuringly at him, a warm smile filled with love and hope and excitement.

Of course he could handle it, he thought to himself.  With John by his side, he was confident that he had never been more ready for anything in his life.  He released John’s hand to take Callum from the nurse in front of him.  When he had his baby in his arms he brought his face down slowly to place a soft kiss on his son’s forehead.  Callum snuffled and stirred in his sleep, sighing gently.

“I’ll be so good to you,” Sherlock whispered tenderly against the infant’s forehead, lips pressed to the soft flesh.  “I’ll take such good care of you.  Better than anyone else ever could.  Because they don’t know you like I do.  They don’t love you like I do.  Not like I do.”

Xxx

Baker Street looked very much the same as it always had from the outside.  To passersby, it could not be gleaned that the building had been almost destroyed, burnt down to its bare bones, torn apart by radicals and terrorists.

But inside…

Inside is where the biggest changes were.

It was not the old Baker Street inside.  Not at all.  The old Baker Street had died, had turned to ash that lay mixed into the ground beneath the new foundation of the building.

Sherlock knew this, and so coming back to Baker Street was not as pacifying as it should have been.

The old Baker Street was gone.  The building in which he and John had come together as flatmates and work colleagues, the home which he and John had shared, the small flat where they had started their lives together.  That was gone, and he would never be able to come back home to that Baker Street again.

But this Baker Street…this Baker Street was something he could grow accustomed to.

For John, it seemed, it would take a bit more time, though.

“What the bloody hell is all of this, then?” he exclaimed, when Sherlock opened the door for him and the other man walked into their flat, a sleeping Callum in tow, unconscious in the bulky baby carrier that weighed John down.

“It’s Baker Street, of course, John,” Sherlock answered.

“No, Sherlock.  _This_ isn’t Baker Street.  This is…Mycroft’s mansion, shoved into a tiny flat.”

Sherlock scoffed.  “Just because my brother and I seem to have the same tendencies towards antiquities and books, that doesn’t mean that I have decorated exactly like him.  And besides, the flat isn’t as tiny as it used to be.  I think you’ll find ample room now for all of our…habits and hobbies.”

“Sherlock, this all seems a little much.  How much money did you spend rebuilding Baker Street?”

“That’s not important.”

“I think it is, Sherlock.  I mean, look at this place!  It’s…wonderful.”

“Yes, well, I knew you would like it.  How could you not?  I must say, I am on quite the winning streak lately aren’t I?  Success around every corner.  And, lucky me, I can finally toast to all my triumphs,” he said with a smug smirk.

“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing it’s not going to your head,” John told him, chuckling. 

Sherlock could tell that John was surprised to find Mrs. Hudson waiting for them, in the depths of the now-larger flat.  Perhaps he hadn’t actually believed Sherlock when the brunette had told him that Mrs. Hudson was now in their employ.

It didn’t matter though, Sherlock couldn’t be bothered to think on it right then.  Not when he was too busy giving John a tour of their new home, showing him the library with the great stone fireplace in one corner, the laboratory he had built specifically for the kinds of cases that they took on, the extra-large kitchen that now housed a separate, smaller cooler for Sherlock to put all of his experiments, so that their food supply would no longer be contaminated by blood oozing out of poorly sealed containers, or the smell of flesh that had been stored for just a tad too long.

And finally, he took John to the nursery, the room that he had spent weeks trying to decide how to build.  It had been the last room the construction crew had worked on, adding on to it continuously after that day that Sherlock and John had argued in it, and it still smelled of new furniture and fresh wood. 

The room was large.  Big enough for a crib in one corner, with an adjoining changing station, a large, antique rocking chair in the other, and a play area on the other side of the room.  Against one wall there was already a chest filled with toys, and a tall, cherry wood bookcase that was filled from top to bottom with children’s books.  The walls were two-toned, with pristine white molding cutting along half the height.  The top color was a soft, soothing mint green that did well to brighten up the room, while the bottom color was complimentary grayish blue, adding just the right amount of depth.

“Oh, Sherlock,” John breathed, his eyes roving over the room.  “It’s wonderful.  You decorated this all by yourself?”

“Well, Mrs. Hudson helped a bit,” Sherlock said, slightly embarrassed by John’s reaction to Callum’s room.

“It’s beautiful,” John replied, standing in the doorway for a moment longer before he stepped into the room, going about unpacking Callum from the carrier and settling him into the crib, before beginning to search the room a bit more closely, especially interested in the various stories that were on the shelves of large bookcase.

After a moment of letting him look around, Sherlock spoke out suddenly, cutting through the silence of the room with his deep baritone voice.  “Why don’t you come see our room?”

John smiled, a bit coyly in Sherlock’s opinion, and threw the brunette a shy glance.  “Yeah, all right,” he agreed, a sexy blush dusting his cheeks.  “Go down before me, I’ll be there in a minute.  I just want to make sure Callum is okay.”

Sherlock grinned at him, and threw him a flirtatious wink before chuckling softly and turning to leave John alone in the room.  He made his way back down the stairs and through their sitting room, passing by Mrs. Hudson doing a bit of light cleaning around the mantle.  He let her know that he and John would be retiring to their room for a moment, and to keep an ear out for the baby, if he were to awaken.

She gave him a warm, motherly smile and a pat on the cheek to let him know that she would take care of it, and he continued on his way to his bedroom, closing the door with a contented sigh behind him once he was inside.

The release from the hospital and the effort it had taken to get Callum across town and get everybody settled into their new home had been tremendous for Sherlock, still recovering from the surgery and the peritonitis.  As soon as he was in the room Sherlock fell, albeit cautiously, onto the bed, completely drained of energy and the will to keep his eyes open any longer.  The pillows cradling his head were so soft, so inviting, and the mattress supporting his body below him was so comfortable…as much the opposite of his hospital bed as he believed anything two things could be.

Just a second to rest his eyes…just a short moment to relax and catch his breath….

He awoke with a jolt to the distant sounds of a baby crying.  Forgetting himself for a moment, he quickly sat up in bed, too fast, and the tender healing flesh of his stomach pulled painfully against the stitches and thin new skin that was healing the incisions, making him cry out and fall back onto the mattress, clutching at his stomach and wincing.

Above him, in the nursery, he heard the sounds of footsteps across the wooden floorboards, and the sudden steady creak of what must be the rocking chair being moved back and forth.  As he struggled out of bed, more careful this time, the distant sounds of Callum’s crying abated, and Sherlock managed to hobble out of his room, taking the stairs carefully so as not to over-exert himself any more than he already had.

When he finally made it to the baby’s room, panting slightly from the long trek, he opened the door quietly and peered inside.  The sight that met his eyes made him forget about the pain for a moment, forget about the exhaustion and the soreness.

John sat, in the antique wooden rocking chair in the middle of the room, holding their son in one arm, and feeding him a bottle with the other hand, smiling down at him and speaking in a hushed tone, whispering little endearments that were for his child’s ears only.

The door creaked loudly as Sherlock pushed it open the rest of the way, and John tore his eyes away from Callum to look at Sherlock, smile still in place.

“You napped for a long while.  Feeling better?” John asked.

“In the worst way,” Sherlock replied with a tired, wholehearted grin.  He made his way over to John, peering down at his two boys from his considerable height.  “How’s our little man?”

John chuckled and looked up at Sherlock from his seat.  “Hungry.  You’d never think that he was premature and wouldn’t eat, with as much as he’s packing it away now.”

“Good.  That’s very good.”

They stood there in silence for a long moment, watching as Callum continued to suckle on his bottle and eventually drift off into sleep.  Once John was sure he wouldn’t awaken again, he carefully stood up and tiptoed back to the crib, laying Callum down gently and swaddling him rather cozily into one of the receiving blankets.

“I can’t believe what we’ve done,” John whispered, standing beside Callum’s crib and resting a hand on his baby’s little body, unmoving.  His voice was soft and full of emotion, and Sherlock moved unconsciously to stand beside him, staring down at their son together with him.  “I don’t know how we managed to make something so right and beautiful out of the mess we had turned the situation into.”

Sherlock stared at the small, sleeping bundle before him, John’s warmth a comforting presence next to him.  The time he had spent in Baker Street alone after his argument with John had been almost unbearable, especially with all of the extra space.  It felt right, having John back home, with him.

But John was correct in his statement, and as much as Sherlock wanted to, he couldn’t ignore the fact that they _had_ made a mess of the whole thing.  He thought of the past year—how they had gone from Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, Consulting Detectives, to Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, lovers, fathers, and pro-Synath inspirations.

Everything that they had been through, beginning at the moment the Synathida pills had touched Sherlock’s lips—the fight they had had when John found out, the first separation after John had left him, the increasingly violent protests that had brought them back together, the torturous time they had spent apart after they had made up, the news of his pregnancy coming out, the assault, the arson, all the other arguments they had had…everything that Sherlock had been lucky enough to live through and beat.  It was unreal to think of how everything in their lives had turned upside down from just a handful of small pills being taken.

He could only imagine what John thought of the past year.  He had had to fight his own battles, while Sherlock struggled with his, both separated and brought together by the same thing, by the same love they felt for each other and for their unborn child.

Callum moved in his sleep, wiggling against the blanket that held him tightly.  He yawned suddenly, a wide, heart-stuttering opening of his tiny mouth that had Sherlock smiling without even realizing.

When he looked over at John, he saw that the other man was just an entranced by the simple movement as he was.

Unbelievable was right.  Sherlock didn’t know how they had ever thought that their lives were complete before Callum.  Before the Synathida and the pregnancy and the fights and the mess.

But it was beautiful now.  And it was theirs.

“I have to agree,” he responded, his own voice a whisper so as not to disturb the sleeping infant.  “I never…apologized for…what happened,” he said, somewhat awkwardly, not looking at John but instead staring at Callum.

Beside him, he felt John shift his weight uncomfortably, and the other man avoided his gaze as well.  “You don’t have to,” John said softly, a small frown forming on his face.  “It was my fault, I—the way I behaved, Sherlock, was inexcusable and awful—”

Sherlock shook his head, silencing John, the tips of his fringe falling into his eyes.  “It seems we’ve both been doing a rather good job of avoiding this whole mess, but I don’t think that’s the best thing to do, do you?” he asked rhetorically.

John didn’t disagree with him, and Sherlock knew that was as close to an agreement as he would get out of the man.

“I just want you to know that,” he paused, unsure of the words to continue.  How could he articulate everything he felt, everything he wanted to say?  He had always been good with words, yet at the moment, the damned things seemed to be failing him miserably.  “I didn’t mean to make you leave.  I would never willingly want that to happen.”

John seemed to know that this wasn’t exactly what Sherlock was wanting to say, this wasn’t the point he was trying to get across, there was something more he wanted to say, so he stood there silently, finally turning to dare a glance at the brunette man, who was made all the more nervous by the blonde’s deep stare. 

“When you left, it…destroyed me,” he tried again, and he felt the light tingle of a blush on his cheeks and the tips of his ears, his composure undone by John’s soft deep blue eyes boring into his own.  “And I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to see you back in Baker Street, where you belong,” he continued, hoping he was making more sense than what he thought he was.  “The entire time that I was here without you, I was incomplete.  It was as if something great was missing from my life.  Baker Street just wasn’t the same without you, John.  I wasn’t the same.  And here I was, in our flat, waiting so very long for you.  And now that you’re back…I could just slip right into you.” 

He moved closer to John, pressing his chest gently against John’s back, mindful of the stitches on his stomach.  His arms came up to wrap themselves around John’s waist, bringing the other man closer to him.  He dropped his head into the crook of John’s neck and inhaled the blonde’s scent, aftershave and a residual lingering of hospital antiseptic.  His lips moved to place a soft kiss on the tender flesh of John’s neck, where it joined his shoulder, and his eyes fell closed at the simple, heady feel of having John back in his arms once more. 

“It’s so easy to come back into you,” he whispered into the warmth of John’s skin.  “Why do you think that is?  We keep pulling apart and coming back together, like we’re drawn to one another by something greater than ourselves.  I’ve never understood it.  But it consumes me.” 

“That’s love, Sherlock,” John answered, without a pause.  “Plain and simple.”  He brought his hands up to rest on Sherlock’s as they sat wrapped around the blonde man’s waist, sweeping soothing fingers over Sherlock’s bare skin.

“Love?” Sherlock repeated, confused.  Love had always been a tricky emotion for him, one that eluded his scientific mind most days.  He knew he felt love for John, and for their child now, but he had never been able to define the exact properties of love, and that had always bothered him.  “I didn’t think love was supposed to be this tumultuous.  This messy.”

He felt a chuckle rumble through John.  “Maybe it’s not that way for other people,” he said, smiling.  “But for us, it’s the same as everything else in our lives.  Can’t ever have an easy go at it, can we?”

Sherlock didn’t answer him.  Instead, he thought about the words John had just said.  ‘Not that way for other people.’  It made him think.  Maybe this was wrong.  If it wasn’t supposed to be this hard, if it wasn’t this hard for everyone else, maybe they weren’t really meant to be together.

The thought scared Sherlock.  Because he couldn’t lose John.  He knew this.  Had always known this.  And the time John had spent away from him only solidified this thought in Sherlock’s head.

No, he wouldn’t let something like it being ‘difficult’ keep John from him.  He couldn’t allow it.  He would fight for John, with every breath in his body, until he couldn’t possibly fight any longer.

But he wanted to know that John would do the same for him.  Had to know.

“Do you think it would it be easier, John, if we just stayed apart?” he asked, more scared of John’s potential answer than he would admit to himself.  “Would it be better?”

John, though, didn’t seem to feel the same desperation that had hold of Sherlock.  “I honestly don't know,” he said nonchalantly, with a small shrug.  “Truthfully, it probably would be easier.”  He paused, and for Sherlock, the world seemed to stop spinning for a dark, dreary moment.  “But I don’t think for a second it would be better. We would never be happy, being apart.  There’s nobody else for either of us, Sherlock.  Nobody who could make us feel the way we do when we are together.  You know that.”

And, suddenly, Sherlock felt as though he could breathe again.

“Yes,” he said to John, smiling and sighing in relief.  “Yes, I do.”

“And now, with him,” John continued, reaching out a hand to brush at Callum’s dark curls, which looked so much like Sherlock’s own, “nothing else could ever make us feel as complete as being together can.  All of us.  A family.”

“A family?” Sherlock repeated with a confused frown, the word sounding strange on his tongue.

“Well, yeah,” John said with another small chuckle.  “That’s what we are now, isn’t it?  A family?”

“Yes,” Sherlock answered, distantly.  He was intrigued by this idea of family, which he had not thought of during his months of pregnancy.  Everything that had gone on during those torturous forty-something weeks (from the first moment he had taken the Synathida), and he never once thought of the fact that he and John were not just creating a life—they were creating a _family._   Their own family.  “Yes, I suppose you’re right.  How odd.”

They stood there for a few more moments, wrapped around each other and watching Callum in placid, pleasant silence.  But then John drew breath to speak, and a small tremor accompanied his voice, making Sherlock frown in worry.

“Sherlock, I know how hard it must be for you to tell me what you just did,” John said quickly, as if there were a jumble of words he wanted to get out, and he was afraid that the longer it took to speak them, the faster they would disappear.  “And I just want you to know that I’m sorry, too.  I’m so sorry.  For everything.”  He paused and pulled away from Sherlock’s embrace slightly so that he could turn and look him in the eye, as if he wanted Sherlock to understand, to _know,_ that John was telling him the truth.  “Nothing more ever happened between Greg and I.  And what did happen…I was just confused, and hurt, and lonely.  It’s not an excuse,” he said in an explosive rush.  “I’d never try to excuse it.  But I just want you to know that it was a mistake.  And that night that I left, I—I told him to stop.”  He paused to take a shuddery breath, and then soldiered on before Sherlock could open his mouth to reply. 

“I know that you have your own way of dealing with issues, dealing with…problems,” the shorter man continued, forging through the deafening silence that had settled over the room as Sherlock stared at him in wonder.  “I’ve known that for a long time.  And it’s unfair of me to ask you to change all of a sudden, when you’ve been like this since the moment I…since the moment I fell in love with you,” he drew a deep breath, as if to steady himself, and Sherlock could do nothing but wait and let him finish speaking, just as John had done for him earlier. 

“When we argued, I was angry that you were relying on me to make everything better.  It upset me then, but I just want you to know that I’ve changed my mind about the way I feel about it.”  The blush that was creeping down John’s cheeks and towards his neck deepened noticeably, as did the tremor in his voice, and John squirmed in his arms to turn back around, his back pressed to Sherlock’s chest once more, facing away from Sherlock as if that would make the words easier to say.  “But I just want you to know that I…Well, I just want to tell you…that is—I just want to say…I can take it, if you need to take things out on someone,” he finished in a mumble, and from Sherlock's stance so close behind the blonde man, he could see the pinkening of John's ears and one of his cheeks.  “I like when you lean on me.  I like when you depend on me to make things better.  I want to be the kind of person that can always make things better for you.  I want to be the person that you turn to when you have nowhere else to go.  I want to be the one to defend you, and protect you.  You and our baby.  I don’t want to run away from that responsibility again.  I want to be as brave as you seem to think I am.”

“John…”

He was speechless, for once.  Torn apart by John’s words, and John’s devotion, and John’s amazing capacity to love him, unlike anyone else in the world.

His arms tightened around John, crushing the other man to him before loosening his grip only enough to turn the blonde around in the circle of his arms, so that John faced him and he could look into his lover’s eyes.  Sherlock kissed him then, roughly and desperately, tasting John’s words, John’s love, John’s devotion, and pulling it out of the man, taking it deep into himself.  He felt John’s arms come up to hold him about the shoulders, John’s hands grasping harshly at the skin of his back, his neck, his chest.

When he finally felt as though he could break away from John without dying from the pain of it, he brought his own hands up to cup the back of John’s head, keeping their foreheads pressed together and making their noses bump against one another, their breath meeting in the small space between their lips in soft, aroused pants.

“I don’t simply think you’re brave, John,” Sherlock murmured, and their faces were so close together that he felt John’s lips against his own as he spoke.  “I know it.  I know it to be as true a fact as anything I’ve ever valued enough to commit to memory.  And much more precious a thing than any other piece of information that I keep.”  His voice was so soft, barely a whisper, because in this space where there was only the two of them, he didn’t need to speak any louder, his words didn’t have to be any clearer.  He knew John would understand.  John had always been able to understand.  “Brave and wonderful and loving and perfect,” he continued, bringing his hands around to cup the blonde’s cheeks now, using his thumbs to caress John’s eyebrows and the soft, delicate parts around John’s eyes.  “You are all of those things.  And you are mine.  Both of you.  And I promise that I will die before I ever let anything happen to either of you.  I…I love you both.  So very much.”

There was a soft release of air from John’s mouth, almost a sigh, and Sherlock drank it up, kissing John’s lips once more, softly, sweetly.  “I know,” John mumbled against his mouth, and Sherlock reluctantly released him so that he could talk.  “I love you, too, Sherlock.”  He smiled against Sherlock’s mouth, and Sherlock felt the movement like a ray of summer sunshine against his skin.  “Come on; let’s go to bed, shall we?  In a few hours we’ll have to be up, to do it all over again.”

He was very inclined to agree with John for once, and he lifted his head to place another small kiss on John’s forehead, where a small red mark was growing from the pressure of Sherlock’s own head against him.  John wrapped his arm about Sherlock’s waist and tightened his grip, his fingers brushing along Sherlock’s waist in a tantalizing sort of way that sent shivers up Sherlock’s body.

With one last look at their son, to be sure everything was still in order, they left the room and made their way carefully down the stairs, wrapped in each other and being mindful of Sherlock’s descent on the steps, as the downward shift in his balance pulled uncomfortable at his incisions.

When they finally made it through the quiet, dark flat and into their room, Sherlock was slightly out of breath and John wasted no time in laying him down in the bed.  He then proceeded to undress Sherlock, starting with the man’s trousers.

Sherlock knew that John wasn’t meaning the action to be arousing—they had both had a stern talking to by the doctors before Sherlock’s release, on the complications that could arise from pulled stitches due to ‘strenuous activity’, but Sherlock couldn’t help it…It had been so long since John had been home, in his bed, next to him, so close.

His cock twitched sleepily underneath his pants as John pulled his trousers over his hips and down the long length of his legs.  But when John’s fingers came up to begin unbuttoning his shirt, Sherlock’s arousal quickly waned and his hands came up almost of their own volition to push’s John’s touch away.

“Sherlock, what—?” he asked, as the brunette man swatted his hands away harshly.

“I—I don’t want you to look at my stomach,” Sherlock said, slightly embarrassed.  He had gotten plenty of good looks at the area himself over the past several days, as the nurses came in and lifted his hospital gown to check the incision for infection, clean it and redress it.  The cut itself was a large, unsightly, angry-looking blemish on what had once been a smooth, unbroken expanse of skin, marring and mutating Sherlock’s body in a way that he found highly disgusting.  But it wasn’t simply the incision he was worried about.  There was still all of loose, extra skin that had been stretched and pulled to accommodate his growing abdomen during the pregnancy.

He felt decidedly self-conscious about the whole thing, gripping the ends of his shirt together in clenched hands and refusing to meet John’s eyes as the blonde man stared at him incredulously.

“Sherlock, do you think I care what it looks like?” he asked with a frown.  “I’m a doctor, for God’s sake; I’ve seen all sorts of incisions and cuts.”

Sherlock shook his head, sitting on the bed and trying not to blush.  “It’s not that, John.”

It took the other man a few moments to comprehend (reasserting Sherlock’s belief that the poor man was charmingly dull) but when John finally realized what it was that was bothering Sherlock, he only smiled gently, bringing his hands up to cup Sherlock’s cheeks and turn his gaze back towards him.

“Sherlock, there is nothing on this earth that could make you less beautiful to me,” he whispered, placing a promising kiss on the tip of Sherlock’s nose.  “Especially not when it means that you have just given birth to our child.”  His hands fell to lie on top of Sherlock’s own, gently pushing against the clenched fists to try to get to the shirt underneath.  “Let me see you.  Please.  I want to see all of you.”

Against his better judgment, Sherlock loosened his grip on his shirt and let his head fall back against the headboard in resignation, shutting his eyes against John’s reaction as the doctor slowly began to unbutton his shirt, pulling apart the two pieces of material to expose Sherlock’s flesh underneath.

He felt when John had reached the last button and pushed the shirt apart, and he waited with bated breath while John sat quietly beside him, and behind Sherlock’s closed eyes he could only guess that John was staring at him.

And then his body jolted when he felt John’s lips, soft and warm, against the flab of his belly, far from the incision so that he didn’t hurt the brunette.

“Still beautiful,” John whispered against his stomach.  “So lovely.”

He couldn’t help the blush that came to his cheeks then, or the stirring in his groin once again as John continued to place heated kisses on Sherlock’s abdomen, moving to encompass as much of the area, low and high, that he could get to above and below the stitches.

“John,” Sherlock gasped, his breath hitching as John’s tongue came out to paint a hot, wet trail from his hip bone and up along the sensitive side of his stomach.  His hands came up to thread through John’s short, dusty blonde hair, fingers curling around the soft tendrils when John’s mouth threatened to undo him.

His cock was completely hard now, and his hips were starting to buck uncontrollably, pushing his body against John’s which was still on top of him, unmoving.

“John, please, can we…?”

At that, John’s mouth disappeared, and Sherlock opened his eyes with a groan, raising his head to see why the other man had stopped so suddenly.  When his eyes fell on John, his cock gave another unvoluntary twitch.

The blonde’s eyes had darkened with his own arousal, pupils blown and breath coming in ragged gasps just like Sherlock’s.  There was a sheen of saliva on his lips from the wet kisses he had been giving Sherlock’s stomach and when Sherlock’s eyes travelled down the other man’s body he saw that John was just as turned on as he was.

But despite all of that, John still shook his head, hard, as if trying to dispel the cloud of arousal that had settled over him.  “No, we can’t, Sherlock,” he said, and his voice was rough with longing and guilt.  “The doctor said no sexual intercourse until the stitches have healed and you aren’t so easily fatigued.”

He stood up and moved away from Sherlock, walking to the other side of the room to begin undressing for bed, turning away from Sherlock so that the brunette man couldn’t see his erection or the slight shake of his hands from the restraint of not taking Sherlock right then.

The brunette man sat up carefully in bed, outraged and upset that it seemed his hard on was to get no attention that night.  “I’m not ‘easily fatigued’!” he argued angrily.

John threw him a ‘please don’t make this harder than it is’ look of desperation.  “Sherlock, you can’t even make it down the stairs without losing your breath,” he explained, crawling into his side of the bed once he was undressed.  “If we had sex right now, you would pass out from hyperventilation!”

Sherlock knew it was pointless to argue.  John _was_ right, after all.  And as much as he wanted John to fuck him, the thought of going back to the hospital for another few days was almost enough to make him go soft.

“How ‘bout a wank, then?” he asked huskily, as he rolled carefully on to his side and reached out towards John, pulling the other man to him until John was on his side, too, and they were facing each other on the bed.

“Sherlock!” John complained with a groan, rolling his eyes and trying to turn away, but Sherlock’s hand on his shoulder tightened and held him in place.

“Please, John,” he whispered, bringing his face closer and kissing John tenderly.  He let his tongue sweep against John’s lips, pleadingly, and his hands moved to caress John’s body, drinking in the lovely feel of him.  “I need it.  So badly.  I need you to touch me.  I want to feel you.”  His hand found John’s, and gripped it, tugging it down between them until it was on his cock, touching himself while John’s hand held his own.

Against his lips John groaned.  “You sure do know how to turn a bloke on,” the blonde whispered against Sherlock’s mouth, and Sherlock smiled in triumph as John let go his restraints and conservations, and pulled himself onto his hands and knees, moving to crouch over Sherlock carefully.

John’s hand roughly pushed Sherlock’s own away from his cock, gripping the hard flesh harshly and stroking it, making Sherlock moan into John’s mouth and buck up into the blonde’s hand and body.

“God, I’ve missed making you moan,” John whispered, pulling his lips away from Sherlock’s and dragging them down the brunette’s long body, mindful of the stitches, to come and hover over the head of Sherlock’s cock, his strong hands pressing Sherlock’s hips against the bed as the man tried to buck, wanting John’s mouth on him

“Please, John,” he said, brokenly.  “I can’t wait any longer.  I need you.”

John blew a hot breath over the sensitive flesh of Sherlock’s cock, making the man cry out, and he let his hot, wet tongue tease the tip, dipping into the small slit and licking up the precum that was flowing freely, swirling it around the head before taking more of Sherlock in his mouth.

Beneath him, Sherlock lost all sense of himself.  Any embarrassment he felt in his body, any reservations he had about not straining himself, any worries that he had about the future, about himself and his ability to deal with the perils of parenthood, John washed away.  With his hands, with his mouth, with his breath, with his heart.  Washed away and replaced with the most urgent sense of love, of longing, of desperation, of completeness, of…

There was the all too familiar tightening in his groin, the arch of his back, the clenching of his hands as John’s mouth worked over his cock, nimble fingers pulling and pushing softly against his balls and perineum, and Sherlock’s breath came in ragged gasps, his body tensing and his cock twitching as the beginnings of his orgasm washed over him before—

At a loud, harsh sound coming from the baby monitor he had placed on the nightstand days ago in preparation for Callum’s homecoming, the blonde man immediately jumped and pulled away, mouth coming off of Sherlock’s cock with a wet sound and Sherlock groaned harshly at the loss of heat when he had been so close, so fucking close.

“What?  What is it?” he asked angrily, pushing himself up onto his elbows to see where John had gone.

“It’s Callum, Sherlock,” John was saying as he moved off of Sherlock’s prone form and got out of bed, starting to get redressed.

“No, John, don’t,” Sherlock said, sitting up dejectedly, mind still a haze from his almost-orgasm.

“Sherlock, our son is crying,” John repeated, a look of incredulity on his face as he tugged on his trousers, frowning at the man still sitting up in bed.

As John continued to get dressed and Callum’s cries continued to blare loudly over the speaker of the small baby monitor, Sherlock fell backwards into the mattress, his hands coming up to pull at his dark hair in desperation.  “Oh, God,” he groaned as his still hard cock bobbed uncomfortably at his movements.  “What have we done?  We are never going to be able to have sex again, are we?”

John gave him a long suffering look.  “It’s all right, Sherlock.  It’s just one time,” he reassured, buttoning his trousers and coming back to the bed to give Sherlock a quick kiss before he left to go tend to the baby.  “I’ll put him back to sleep and then we can pick up where we left off, I promise.”

He moved away, to leave and go check on Callum, but Sherlock’s hand shot out and gripped his wrist tightly.  “But…I was so close,” he whimpered, frustrated.

“Well, I’m sorry, Sherlock, but we can’t just ignore him!” John exclaimed, tugging against Sherlock’s grip on his wrist.  “What do you want to do about it?”

And then a dangerous grin took over Sherlock, as he remembered a very important piece of information.  His smile turned sharp at the edges and he saw John’s look turn from one of incredulity to one of worry. “Would you like to call on our housekeeper to go see to him?” Sherlock asked, casually enough.  “It is what we are paying her for, after all.”

And suddenly, John’s frown melted into a smile of his own and the boys grinned devilishly at each other, wide wolf smiles that shined mischievously in the darkness of their bedroom.

“What a wonderful idea, Sherlock,” John said brightly.

And then, in unison, as if they shared one mind, they both drew breath and shouted out, “Mrs. Hudson!!!” and giggled endlessly as they heard the poor old woman waken, and stumble about the dark flat, cursing them and trying to navigate the new surroundings to get to Callum’s room. 

As she finally found her way, they could hear her mumbling obscenities towards them over the baby monitor, and it only fueled their laughter.  John was laughing so hard that he couldn’t bear to stand up anymore, and he fell back into the bed, Sherlock moving to make room for him.

“We’ll have to tell her that we can hear everything she says over the monitor,” John gasped out, clutching at his side as a particularly un-Mrs. Hudson-like word rang out over the speaker.

“I don’t think we should, John.  It would save her the mortification,” he said, reaching a hand out to pull John towards him, wrapping his arm around the other man’s still shaking shoulder.  He turned to give the top of John’s head a kiss, sighing in contentment.  It seemed he was still pushing his luck, he knew.

But he wouldn’t stop any time soon.

No, he would keep on doing just as he had been in the past.  Pushing and pushing and pushing.  Because whatever it was that he was doing seemed to be working out perfectly, and he honestly didn’t have a single clue as to how it got to be this way; how it ever got to be so wonderful.


End file.
